


Eye of the Beholding

by Cosmic_Retribution, librius



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Canon-Typical Hell Tunnels, Canon-Typical Violence, Elias is decent in this one because simply put Jon deserves one less enemy, I started writing this partway through s2 like a complete fool, M/M, Past Elias/Peter, and also because I didn't know how evil he rly was when I first started this lmao, author is American sorry for any weirdness resulting of that, everyone lives au, imagine a normal world except the fear entities are absolutely definitely still there, in the absolute best of my capacity I promise you a happy ending here, okay actually some villains will perish but I promise not to kill the protagonists, one-sided Michael/Jon, slight beholding!Martin, spoilers through s4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 114,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23303476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmic_Retribution/pseuds/Cosmic_Retribution, https://archiveofourown.org/users/librius/pseuds/librius
Summary: “He justshowed upthe other day for the first time in, so far as I can tell,ever, and no one thinks it’s even a little bit weird? Something’s not right.”Martin paused for a moment.Jon was, of course, hoping in vain that his pointing it out would bring some sudden revelation, and then the two would set out with some half-brained scheme to Expose Michael For What He Really Was. They would go and tell Tim, who would tell Sasha, and it would be rather like old times: the four of them charging recklessly into something bigger than they understood, and coming away with some wild memory of their recent escapade, or something new and terrible and grand to ponder, or the truth, or whatever it was they went looking for.But Martin just said, “Jon, are you sure you’re feeling alright?” and Jon sighed.___There is something in the tunnels underneath the school.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard & Jonathan Sims, Gerard Keay & Gertrude Robinson, Gerard Keay & Jonathan Sims, Helen Richardson & Michael, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Michael & Jonathan Sims
Comments: 482
Kudos: 390





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t the weirdest thing that was going to happen. 

It wasn’t even going to be the most dangerous, not by far. There were a lot of points you could pin the beginning on, but this one stuck out to him. It felt momentous in a way not entirely earned, not like the moment when things actually _begin_ to go wrong, but when you _realize_ that something isn't right. 

For Jon, that moment came in first period on an unassuming mid-October Tuesday, about two or three minutes before the bell rang. 

“Alright, hand me your papers,” said Jon. Everyone was packing up by now. He caught Tim right before he unthinkingly shoved it into the black hole he called a backpack, plucking the sheet out of his grip easily and, gathering up Martin’s work as well, took them into the back of the classroom and waited his turn to file them away. 

When he did so, however, he opened their group’s file to find it already occupied by a single sheet of paper. 

“I think somebody misplaced theirs,” Jon directed to Martin, who always hung back to wait for him. “There’s another person’s work in our file.” He took it out to examine. “No name, messy handwriting. Think I should just toss it out?” 

“What do you mean, misplaced?” Martin asked, and Jon paused. “Jon, really, come on. Guy misses one day and you immediately forget all about him?” 

This was the dawning moment. Their class did not have an even number of students in it. When they were divided up into groups at the beginning of the year, their group came up short, with only three members-- himself, Tim and Martin.

He had tried to explain as much to Martin, who just looked at him peculiarly, like he was trying to convince him of something particularly daft. 

“There _is_ no fourth person in our group, Martin. Stop messing around,” he said as the bell rang and students began filing out of the room. 

Martin sighed. “I swear, Jon, I can’t tell if you’re being serious sometimes. Michael has been in our group from the start.” 

That was the beginning. 

* * *

The next day was the first time Jon ever laid eyes on him, despite everyone else’s claims to the contrary. Of course, the instant he did look upon him, he received a completely unshocking revelation: _not human,_ said the little voice of his subconscious, as it was wont to do. 

This ‘Michael’ certainly _appeared_ human enough, if a bit eccentric: he simply waltzed into the room ten seconds shy of being late, slung his backpack down and sat in the seat beside Jon like it was a well-rehearsed routine. 

He had long, curly blonde hair cascading most of the way down his back and a sort of round face, with eyes whose exact color he found difficult to determine at first glance. He wore faded jeans with a few patches around the knees where they had apparently once been torn, and what appeared to be a white button up shirt under the most hideously neon jacket imaginable. It was one of those vintage windbreaker types with irregular blocks of eye-searing colors. His hands, his fingers, Jon noticed, were covered in places by an array of colorful band-aids; there were enough of them to make him wonder what on _earth_ the thing had been doing to require quite so many. 

If anyone else noticed anything was amiss, they did not react. Only Jon knew that ‘Michael’ was not what he appeared. 

“Can I have a sheet of notebook paper?” Michael asked him partway through class, idly clicking his pen-- an odd sort, filled with swirling, glittery ink of a wide array of colors, such that writing with it would over time produce a shifting hue. 

“Of course,” Jon said with tremendous reluctance. _Get your own, impostor,_ is what he was thinking, but he imagined that jumping up out of his seat and declaring Michael a monster in front of the whole class would not go very well. Adding insult to injury, upon accepting the paper, he did not even use it to take notes. He just started doodling away for the rest of class. When he ran out of room on the front, he drew on the back. When he ran out of room on the back, he started drawing on his own arms. This filled Jon with a particular brand of petty annoyance, but there was not much to be done about it. 

The next day, heading to lunch with Martin, he decided to bring it up. 

“So, that… _Michael_ kid,” Jon started apprehensively. 

“What… what about him?” 

“I was just wondering if you ever noticed anything… _weird_ about him.” 

“Why? Should I have?” Martin asked. 

Jon considered carefully. “I… Martin, listen. I _swear_ I haven’t met him before. You might think I’m joking, but I’m being perfectly serious. He just _showed up_ the other day for the first time in, so far as I can tell, _ever,_ and no one thinks it’s even a little bit weird? Something’s not right.” 

Martin paused for a moment. 

Jon was, of course, hoping in vain that his pointing it out would bring some sudden revelation, and that Martin would gasp dramatically in shock as he realized he’d been fooled, and then the two would set out with some half-brained scheme to Expose Michael For What He Really Was. They would go and tell Tim, who would tell Sasha, and it would be rather like old times: the four of them charging recklessly into something bigger than they understood, and coming away with some wild memory of their recent escapade, or something new and terrible and grand to ponder, or the truth, or whatever it was they went looking for. 

But Martin just said, “Jon, are you sure you’re feeling alright?” 

Jon sighed. 

“You can’t be serious, Jon, you know Michael,” Martin insisted falsely. “You have the same homeroom. We went to book club together last year, remember? And he would always say something you didn’t agree with, and you’d get rather worked up about it, and you would spend the rest of it arguing about how wrong and stupid he was. But, I mean, I think he was just doing it on purpose, you know, for attention.” 

“That’s…” _Surprisingly elaborate?_ False, of course, because none of it had ever happened-- he was absolutely sure that he had never, _ever_ seen or heard of him before. 

“I rather thought you were friends, to be honest,” Martin laughed awkwardly. “I guess, er… I guess not?” 

“...Never mind,” Jon said at length. “Forget I said anything. Let’s just go, before the cafeteria lines get too much longer.” 

So they did. Before long, Jon was picking at the limp, slimy leaves of a salad with no intention of actually eating any; Sasha was the last to arrive as usual, taking her place next to Tim and across from Jon at their usual table. He was pretty sure his three companions were rapidly involving themselves in a heated debate about whether the word _niche_ was pronounced to rhyme with _leash_ or with _itch_ at the moment, but Jon’s mind was elsewhere. 

Scanning the cafeteria, _Michael_ was nowhere to be seen. That, in and of itself, was harmless-- lots of students took their lunch somewhere more secluded to eat or skipped it entirely-- but not reassuring to Jon, who knew better not to let his guard down so quickly. It was rarely quite that simple with ‘atrocities masquerading as people’ types, which was a lesson a lifetime of seeing them had instilled in him. 

It wasn’t really the most _interesting_ of weird, supernatural abilities to be born with, but it was the one he had always had nonetheless. 

The first sighting was the only one that would work-- when his eyes first fell upon a monstrous creature trying to pass itself off as normal, that little voice of his mind would speak up: _not human,_ it would say, once and only once. What he did with that knowledge, once obtained, was up to him. It would never elaborate. It would never direct. God forbid he _forgot_ what single insights it bestowed upon him, no-- if that being meant him harm, or meant someone else harm, then only under his own power would he manage to intervene or walk away alive, but it was still an edge, and a valuable one nonetheless. 

The only people that knew of it, he was sure-- Tim, Martin, Sasha and so on-- didn’t exactly _understand_ it. There was something… upsetting about the idea of trying to sit someone down and explain _exactly_ how he came up with all the premonitions and insights he had, a feeling like eyes crawling on the back of his neck whenever he went to open his mouth and speak about it. Even then, he wasn’t sure what exactly that would accomplish, them knowing. As he knew, it really was rarely that simple. 

Because to every rule there were exceptions. Because to every dozen malicious horrors wearing human faces he cast his eyes upon, there was one more-or-less benign, something that had, for whatever reason, decided its true happiness lie in playing pretend and acting human, or that chose to deny its destructive nature in exchange for peace, or _whatever._ Take, for example, Agnes Montague, a student in the same grade as him, runaway daughter of an apparently horrific cult. He had been going to school with her for several years, and knew she was not, strictly speaking, fully human. But he also knew in some way that she _wanted_ to be, and in all the time she’d been at this school, she seemed fully focused on throwing herself into the regular mundanities of everyday life she had been so long denied while living under… whatever surely horrible circumstances her upbringing had imposed. It was her singular passion: being normal, or maybe _reclaiming_ normal, and so far Jon had never been given reason to suspect she was the root of any sinister happenings or harm to others. 

So no, he couldn’t just accept the untruth that Michael had _always been there_ such as everyone else appeared to believe it. First of all, whatever spell had been cast upon the others had not, apparently, touched his memories in the same way. Second, if he had ever seen Michael before, that little ability of his would not have been able to activate, as it was only inclined to work upon the first encounter at all. 

But it was too early to jump to conclusions. Maybe Michael would turn out to be just another unfortunate twisted soul who found happiness in playing high school with everyone else, or maybe he was here with a malevolent agenda for chaos or personal gain. Only time would tell. Until the moment was right, if it would come at all-- and if it did, he knew Tim, Sasha and Martin had his back-- until then, Jon would watch. 

By now, lost in his thoughts so long, the bell had rung again, and Sasha was gently tapping his arm to alert him to the crowd of exiting students. 

Whatever this was going to amount to, it was going to have to wait until another day, at another time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey anyone else here scared for season 5? :') 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you liked it so far. The next chapter should be up in about a week, give or take.  
> I wanna thank my dear friend Librius for all the help they've given me with this story, which would likely be nothing but a pile of disconnected ideas if not for them. That said, buckle up y'all because I have like 200 pages of notes written for this fic. It's gonna be, uh, a ride. :) 
> 
> Additionally, [I drew a picture of Michael in this chapter](https://autisticflowey.tumblr.com/post/613515004719857664/i-want-to-see-my-little-boy-here-he-comes-the), if you're interested. See you next time.


	2. Chapter 2

The following Wednesday, Jon spaced out during a lecture in first period and woke back up to reality to find what else but Michael drawing all over _his hands._

It was eventually the faint scratch of a pen over his skin that caught his attention. He had no idea how he had managed not to notice for the whole class-- except that, well, their teacher was not very engaging to put it charitably-- and by now everyone else had begun to pack up, so Jon reflexively looked down to see what that weird feeling on the back of his hand was. 

A strange, intricate, whirling pattern in multicolored ink, a duo of interlocking spirals with patterns arcing out in between them. Jon froze for only a moment, then yanked his hand away.

“Wh- wh- what the _hell?_ ” Jon sputtered eloquently. 

“I-- uh-- oh my god,” Michael stammered, seeming, if at all possible, even more horrified than Jon himself. “I-- shit-- I spaced out-- sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he said, scooped up his stuff into an unceremonious armload, and booked it. 

Jon just stared after him, stupefied. 

“What was _that_ about?” Asked Tim beside him. 

Jon looked down at his hand. “What… on… _earth_ is that guy’s problem? Do you-- do you _see_ this?”

“The crazy circle? Yeah, I see it, all right.” Tim took his hand to examine it. “Weird.” 

_“Weird?_ It’s beyond weird!” Jon exclaimed. By this point, Martin had returned from filing away the group’s work, and he was looking with a pinched expression between Jon’s hand, Tim, and the door rapidly like he was trying to do the math as to what the hell was going on. 

Jon managed to stumble through a few more half-formed complaints about what had happened before Martin, eyes fixed on Jon’s hand in Tim’s, reached critical mass of awkwardness and said, “um, guys, we’re going to be late,” which shook them back to reality. Jon cursed under his breath, snatched up his backpack and made a beeline for his next class, but once there he snagged the class’s bathroom pass and rushed to try to scrub the ink from his skin. 

But it wouldn’t come off, which, in retrospect, was more of a symptom of it being _ink_ than of it being something sinister-- but it freaked him out nonetheless. He wasn’t above occasionally writing little notes to self and whatnot on the back of his hand, but this was very much something else. Try as he might, the dizzying pattern scarcely even faded, and panic was forcing its way into his chest and up his throat. By third period, he had practically convinced himself he had somehow been cursed or marked or _something,_ and by fifth period he had finally thought to himself: _I’m going to steal that damn pen of his._

So when the next day rolled around, sitting in first period, Jon waited impatiently for the right time to strike. 

And the moment did arrive: when instructed to get out their textbooks and take notes, while the other boy was haphazardly piling things onto his desk as he dug around in his backpack for the requisite books, that pen of his clattered to the tile floor, unnoticed. Jon surreptitiously reached down and pocketed it while Michael’s back was turned, and triumph was his. For about half an hour. 

When the bell rang, Michael shoved his books back into his bag and said casually, “oh, Jon, can I have the pen I lent you back?” 

So of course Jon had no choice but to return it.

How in the _hell_ Michael had managed to notice, he had no idea. The fact that he didn’t even accuse Jon of stealing it-- which was the truth-- and instead claimed to have voluntarily lent it to him-- which was definitely false-- was somehow even more alarming, as if Michael was saying, _two can play at this game._ Unless Jon was overreacting, but at this point, he refused to entertain the notion and instead decided he would just try again tomorrow. 

So on Friday, they went through the same motions again; Jon got the pen into his possession once more and actually managed to make it into the hallways with it. What he was planning to do with it-- he was going to take it to Elias, of course, probably just march straight to his office with it. At this point Jon was still _convinced_ it was the object with which his doom had been written upon his skin, and Elias had a good eye for that sort of thing: items of supernatural power, items that shouldn’t be tampered with. They had never talked about it properly, but Jon had always suspected that whatever ability he himself had to look at _people_ and just know if they weren’t what they seemed, that Elias appeared to have that same power with _objects,_ among other things, and so was hoping to get his opinion on whether or not he needed to start off on a wild vengeance quest against Michael right now before it was too late and he perished horrifically. 

But then, of course, who should walk up beside him as he tried to hurry to the main office but Michael. 

“Hey, Jon, you forgot to return the pen you borrowed from me,” he said calmly. 

Damn it. 

“Er, of course,” Jon mumbled, reluctantly handing it over. “Uh, thanks?” 

“No problem at all,” said Michael cheerfully. “See you around,” he said, and went his own separate way. Jon cursed him silently. So much for that plan. 

Maybe he _was_ just being paranoid, he finally allowed himself to think. 

It was probably just a pen, and Michael was probably just weird. That was probably-- that was probably it. 

* * *

The bus dropped Jon off at home at about 2:23 PM. In another eight or nine minutes, the same bus dropped Martin off at _his_ home. In about an hour to an hour and a half after that, Martin would, as he so often did, make the 15-minute trek from his house to Jon’s. He knew at this hour there was no one else it could be, so when he heard that polite knock from the living room and then the sound of the creaky door opening and shutting as someone let themselves in, he was completely unphased shortly after when Martin shouldered his way into Jon’s room, called out a polite greeting, and set his backpack down on Jon’s bed. 

“I’ve got a creative writing project due next week,” Martin said, rifling through his bag. “Help me with it?” 

“What’s it about?” Jon asked, not even turning around. 

“It’s a short horror story, for Halloween,” Martin said, pulling a few papers out. “Now, Jon, don’t kill me for this, but…” 

“Is it about spiders?” 

“...It is actually about spiders, yes,” Martin admitted grudgingly. 

“ _Ugh,_ ” Jon complained as Martin pulled a stool up to Jon’s desk. 

“I know how you feel about spiders, _but,_ ” Martin explained sheepishly, “being as I’m not actually _afraid_ of spiders, it’s hard to tell if my idea is actually any good or not. Plus, er, you have a-- a better eye for mistakes than I do.” 

“Fine, fine, let’s see what you’ve got, then,” Jon conceded, knowing there was no point trying to avoid it. 

Even if he refused, Martin was still going to go sit on his bed and work on it, as he was wont to do. Then he would just sit there and scribble it all out by hand and write and erase and write and erase and murmur uncertainly to himself and ask Jon things like _how do you spell insidious_ or _how long of a sentence would you say is too long_ or _does this part actually make any sense or is it only understandable in my head._ And Jon would keep sitting at his desk and trying to work on his own homework or do his own thing until he started to get too bored and distracted and the urge to help him would overcome the decision to mind his own business, and… he would just end up being involved either way. 

Not that he would have it any other way, he thought to himself as he opened up a blank word document for him. 

Martin was… strange. 

It was sort of hard to quantify how exactly he came into Jon’s life, he thought to himself in the background as Martin started to explain the premise of his project and they started getting down to work. He pushed his laptop towards Martin and he started typing away, pausing intermittently to get Jon’s opinion on this or that or discuss how to proceed. 

Martin was one of those people who, upon deeper examination, had sort of _always been around_ to him and also never affected him; someone ever in the background but never in the focus. He had a handful of vague, watery memories of him in a _classmate you don’t talk to_ way, but even those he had cause to question. He could, however, pin down with great clarity the exact moment he had come to _know_ Martin. 

It was seventh grade. Early April, before school. The sidewalks outside the building were slick with rain and dotted with puddles, and in those conditions it was no shocker that Jon slipped, twisted his ankle, and took a bit of a tumble. 

He fell ungracefully, hurriedly trying to catch himself as he fell and only managing to scrape up his palms. He had lain there for a moment, hissing with pain and embarrassment on the damp cement, and then a classmate he half-recognized spotted his plight and darted over to help him up. 

“Oh my god, are you okay?” The boy-- who he _now_ knew was Martin-- had said. “That looked like a nasty fall-- oh, my, your hands…” 

“Er, it’s nothing,” Jon said dismissively, wiping the sidewalk grit off his palms and-- oh, hm, that was blood, too. “I’m fine, thank you,” he said, and then took a step, and almost immediately fell right back down as his ankle flared with pain. _Almost,_ because the boy reached out quickly to steady him. 

“Okay, maybe not,” Jon admitted reluctantly. 

“God, I’m sorry,” said the boy. “Let me-- uh-- let me help you. You need to go to the nurse, and, um, I think it’s safe to say you’re not exactly in the best state to go on your own right now? So-- so I’ll just go with you.” 

“I-- I don’t want to make you late for class.” 

“Nonsense,” the boy said. (Then, under his breath: “not like anyone would notice if I was there or not, anyway.”)

That was how they ended up in those hallways together. Jon had not yet, for the life of him, ever managed to understand what had happened during this part. But with the other boy supporting him as they tried to make their way to the nurse’s office… it was like-- they crossed a threshold at some point-- and everything was different. They were empty, completely empty, and as they went the halls seemed to stretch longer than they should have. They were not _twisting_ exactly, it was more that they just seemed to _keep going,_ stretching further and further to keep them away from everybody else _._ For all the world, it felt as if the whole school had become completely, utterly empty, and they were the only breathing things within it. Jon, for his part, was confused, but too focused on limping along with his twisted ankle to comment. But even so, there was something about the idea of breaking the silence that felt dangerous and insurmountable. And Martin… 

There was something about him, the way he carried himself a little differently, the way he cast his eyes around and over his shoulder and and around all corners-- the look on his face-- it wasn’t surprise at all. If anything, it was grim, like a recognition. It was like he was thinking, _not not here, not now, please not now._ It was like he had traced these steps before, but never with anyone else to worry about. Almost. It was like he was trying to outpace the length of the lonely halls before the silence would swallow them. 

It didn’t swallow them. At last they reached the nurse’s office, and the boy turned the handle, and they both audibly sighed with relief to find a room full of noise and clamor. 

And the boy sat with him, waited with him. Jon thanked him several times over for his help and apologized for inconveniencing him, but he just shook his head and shrugged off all of Jon’s words. Jon tried to convince him he would be fine waiting for the nurse by himself, that he didn’t want to hold up the other boy any longer, but again he refused to leave him by himself. 

It was a kind gesture, certainly. But this was the part where Martin became something of an exception. Later, when the overworked nurse handed him an ice pack for his ankle and a couple of bandaids for his hands and left him to sort himself out, it was the boy-- it was Martin-- who insisted on helping him with the bandages, fussing over the scrapes. At that moment Jon, perhaps a little bit shaken still from the whole experience, had begun to think of him less as being one of dozens of half-faceless and interchangeable classmates and, cautiously, as something close to a friend. 

Then he looked back up at Martin to express his thanks, and his eyes fell on the other boy, and that little voice in the back of his head said: _human._

Jon had nearly flinched away in shock. 

It had never done that before, his power. It had yet never done it again, either, declare someone definitively human. It _didn’t work_ like that. It _couldn’t_ work like that. But he was absolutely sure he had sensed it nonetheless. 

In the immediate present of that moment, Martin had just blinked with confusion at Jon’s apparent surprise, and asked him if something was the matter, to which Jon mumbled something about thinking he’d seen a spider. Eventually they must have parted ways, headed to class, and resumed their day as normal. As for the aftermath, well, Jon had been more than a little rattled. (He did briefly question if Martin was perhaps the only real human he had ever met, but, well, that was simply impossible.) He had no idea what his ability was trying to _tell_ him. For a few days he had convinced himself that perhaps it was still a sign that Martin was trouble. He had made a cursory attempt at avoiding him, but his heart wasn’t in it, and it wasn’t ultimately very long until Martin had won his trust. He still had it. 

The funny thing was that-- it was like-- it was as if for all the world he had never registered Martin’s existence properly before that day, before that moment. It was like all the vague memories of him as a background figure of his childhood had slotted into place _after the fact._ Martin as the polite kid with no friends who always raised his hand in class, Martin as the kid he bumped into once in the library who sent all Jon’s books flying (Jon had berated him for that), Martin as the boy who got assigned to be part of Jon’s group in school projects sometimes, often to Jon’s irritation. That one, actually: Jon was fairly certain he remembered having told him once to his face that he would contribute “nothing but delays”. (He remembers the boy who he now knew was Martin bursting into tears. He remembers not having been sorry about it.) 

(He remembers feeling awful about it _now,_ remembers awkwardly bringing it up on one late night’s conversation and finally, belatedly, forcing himself to apologize for it. He remembers Martin telling him not to be sorry. He remembers being sorry anyway, of course. He still was.) 

In the present, though, he became aware of Martin saying, “hello, earth to Jon? Have I managed to fry your brain yet, then?” 

“Er-- no, no, it’s not that,” Jon said hastily. “It’s not like your story is _boring._ It’s coming along pretty well so far, I would say, I just-- I just spaced out a bit.” 

Martin smiled. “Had enough spiders for one sitting?” 

“No, really, I’m fine. We can keep going. We’re already, what, close to halfway done?”

_“Really,_ Jon, you can just say you’d like to take a break. I think we both could use one,” said Martin, standing up. “Okay, I’m going to go make us some tea.” 

“That’s alright, you don’t have to--” 

“What kind do you want? Green? Black? Earl grey?” 

“I’m fine, I don’t need any,” Jon insisted. 

“Yeah, you do. I’m making you lemon ginger.” 

“N- No, I don’t want that kind, make it chai,” Jon relented quickly. 

Martin paused, turned back to him and grinned at him from the doorway. 

“You’re… really something, Jon. You know that?” 

“Well, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jon mumbled, trying not to look embarrassed even as Martin beamed at him. 

“Oh, nothing. You’re just impossible,” Martin said warmly. “Come with me?” 

Jon rolled his eyes. “As if you have to ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...the lonely can have a little endless hallways as a treat. For Reasons. 
> 
> Anyway I hope you all liked this chapter, I had a lot of fun writing it :) next one will be up in about a week-ish. Thank you so much to the folks who left kudos and comments on the last chapter; I know the story isn't much just yet, but I'm so glad you enjoyed it so far. Until next time, take care!


	3. Chapter 3

Soon enough, Martin was humming to himself as he puttered about Jon’s kitchen, putting a kettle on and getting out some mugs. Jon sat at the kitchen table and watched him for a while. It was around quarter after six or so, and the sun had gone down already, leaving the kitchen cast in slightly dim artificial yellow. 

“Are you going to be seeing Tim or Sasha anytime this weekend?” Martin asked eventually. 

“Uh… sort of. Sasha, no. Tim-- we’re going to play some video games on Sunday, but that’s online, so I won’t be seeing him in person.” 

Martin nodded. “Sasha has been… busy a lot lately, hasn’t she?” 

“That’s for sure,” Jon agreed. 

Sasha, ever the most clever one in the group, was taking college classes alongside her high school classes. Working on a computer science degree, in theory, but mostly just knocking out prerequisites. It was well and good that their high school allowed its more ambitious students like her a chance to do that sort of thing and all, but it didn’t stop Jon and Martin from worrying about how such a workload was affecting her. 

“Any particular reason you’re asking, or…?” Jon inquired. 

“Not really, no. Just wondering what they were up to,” Martin said. 

The kettle started to whistle shortly thereafter, and he took it and poured water into each of their mugs. 

“Been too long since we all got together and did something extremely dangerous,” Jon said jokingly. 

Martin laughed. “Sure, but wouldn’t you take homework and exams and whatnot over getting your bones turned?” 

“I-- I suppose.” Jon’s hand went to his ribcage. “Hm. Not very smart of us, charging off to go fight monsters by ourselves.” 

“Fun, though,” said Martin, smiling. 

“For a given definition of _fun,_ ” Jon said. He was unable to suppress a smile of his own. “Yeah, it was.” 

_(It was fun because it was with you guys,_ Jon didn’t say, but then, it didn’t exactly need to be voiced to be understood.) 

“Come get your tea,” Martin chided him gently, opening the fridge. 

“Really? I can’t just get you to fix it up _for_ me?” Jon said innocently, but stood up nonetheless. 

“I _am_ fixing it up for you.” 

“From here it just looks like you’re rearranging the contents of my refrigerator.” 

“You hush. I can’t find your-- here we go.” Martin pulled out a carton of milk. “It feels like there’s _maybe_ two drops left.” 

“Not my fault,” Jon said sheepishly at the teasing accusation in his voice. “Is there enough?” 

“Probably, I suppose.” Martin took it to the counter, and Jon followed him. “Since you’re already standing here now, pass me the sugar.” 

“Of course,” Jon said and, not aware of the _Top 10 Photos Taken Before Disaster_ moment he was currently experiencing, picked up the sugar dish. 

The sugar dish promptly decided it had other ideas about gravity and slipped out of his grasp. There was a muffled _crash_ as glass and sugar went everywhere, and it was at that moment that they heard the creaky front door open and shut. 

Jon looked at Martin, mortified. 

“Hello, Jon, I’m-- hm,” said Elias, taking in the scene. 

“Welcome home. We’re making a mess,” said Jon. 

“I… see.” 

Elias shifted the bags he was carrying to his other hand. Some groceries, from the look of it. 

“Well? Were either of you hurt?” 

Jon looked at Martin, who shook his head. “No, we’re fine.”

“Good, then. Hello, Martin, by the way,” said Elias, bringing his groceries into the kitchen and setting them on the counter, stepping gingerly around the sugar catastrophe. 

Jon fidgeted with embarrassment. “I’ll go get the br--” 

“That would be best. Upstairs bathroom, behind the door, check twice,” Elias said breezily. 

Jon did not bother to ask him how he knew, simply shrugging and heading upstairs. 

Sure enough, the first time he looked he didn’t see it, positioned at a weird angle. He had a cursory look around the rest of the room on principle, checked again, and spotted it. Not that weird in the grand scheme of things, at least not where _he_ was concerned. 

Elias Bouchard, his legal guardian of nine years. Jon’s parents passed away when he was quite young in fairly quick succession, his father when Jon was two from a fall, and his mother when he was five from surgery complications. His grandmother had him, briefly, until she was murdered when he was seven. Elias was, apparently, a family friend from back when his parents were in college. Somewhere they had a picture of a younger Elias, holding Jon as a baby. In it he looks almost surprised, like he’s never held a baby before and isn’t quite sure how to do it, and baby Jon looks comically displeased. It was sort of a sweet picture, in the embarrassing way that all baby pictures were. 

He was also the principal of Jon’s high school, but that was sort of neither here nor there. 

At any rate, Jon trudged back downstairs with the broom. Martin was helping Elias put away the groceries, among which was another box of Martin’s favorite tea and, lo and behold, more sugar. Jon did not bother to ask himself how he had known to get it. 

“Will you be staying over for dinner, Martin?” Elias was asking. 

“I’m afraid not,” Martin said apologetically, reaching up to put a box of cereal on the top shelf of the pantry. “I think after I’ve finished my tea I should probably head home for the day. I… I’ve got some things I’d probably better take care of,” he said, concealing a little note of disappointment. 

“Very well, then,” Elias said. “If that’s the case, do you want a ride home? It’s gotten fairly dark out.” 

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Martin said as Jon dumped the last of the glass-and-sugar catastrophe into the garbage and propped the broom and dustpan up against the wall. “Thank you, though.” 

“Of course,” said Elias, closing the fridge and, upon surveying the kitchen and determining everything to be in place, smiled faintly. 

* * *

By that point the tea had gotten a little bit cold, but they took it back to Jon’s room and drank it anyway. They talked about this and that until Martin reluctantly finished the last of his cup, shrugged on his jacket, gathered up his things, and went to leave. 

“See you tomorrow?” Jon asked as Martin reached for the doorknob. 

“Of course,” Martin said. “Send me those files when you get a sec, will you? I’ll try to work on them a little more at home if I can.” 

“Sure thing. Take care,” said Jon as Martin waved once more and shut the door behind him. 

Dutifully-- and so that he would not immediately forget his request-- Jon went back to his room, emailed the documents to Martin, and then grabbed the pair of empty mugs to take to the kitchen. Shortly thereafter he was joined by Elias, at which point Jon realized they probably ought to start worrying about dinner. 

“How was your day?” Elias asked politely, opening the pantry. 

Jon briefly thought about Michael inadvertently terrorizing him with his complete weirdness. 

“It was fine,” Jon decided tactfully. 

Elias hummed. “That’s good. Now, I don’t suppose you have any opinion on what to have for dinner today?” 

“Not really, no.” 

“Then I’m going to make pasta.” He pulled a box of penne noodles out of the pantry. “How is Martin?” 

“Oh, he’s doing alright,” Jon said, deciding to make himself useful and grab a pot out of the cupboard. “We mostly just worked on homework. Well-- rather, _he_ worked on homework and I helped him. He’s got a creative writing project due next week, so that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to since getting home.” 

“How nice,” said Elias in the distracted way of someone just trying to make conversation. He had accepted the pot from Jon and was filling it at the sink. “What was it about?” 

“Oh, it was a short horror story about spiders,” Jon said. 

Elias went rigid and turned off the tap. 

They were both thinking the same thing at this point. It wasn’t the sort of thing that was easy to just _say out loud,_ but Jon sort of knew the moment the words slipped out of his mouth that they would not likely be well-received, in retrospect. 

“Martin is writing about spiders,” Elias said, careful and measured, back turned. “I see.” 

“Er, not-- uh-- not like that,” Jon said quickly. “I mean, he-- he doesn’t know about the book, Elias. I never told him, he couldn’t have known.” 

“So you say.” 

“Elias…” Jon said, “it’s just a school thing. It’s a short horror paper for Halloween, nothing _weird_ about it. It’s just homework. He doesn’t know.” _It was an accident,_ he thought but didn’t say. 

There was a long pause, and Jon nearly held his breath. Finally Elias turned around, carrying the pot to the stove and turning the burner on. “If you’re certain,” he said at last in a tone forcefully neutral, busying himself with further prep work, grabbing some vegetables from the fridge and a pan from the cupboard. 

They were quiet for another few moments until Elias pushed a bell pepper into Jon’s hands and said, “make yourself useful, Jonathan.” 

Jon rolled his eyes and smiled, grumbling about how he was already helping, but he complied and began to chop up the vegetables. 

He thought about the book, then, getting lost in his head easily while going through the motions of meal prep in silence. If he thought Martin was odd, Elias was definitely made of much stranger stuff. He could be maddening with how much he appeared to know and how little he was willing to explain. Jon _still_ had no idea how Elias had known. 

This was before he knew Martin, though. Before he really had any friends to speak of, come to think of it, just mountains of books and an infuriating, persistent need to know new things constantly. His grandmother, he remembered, had hated that about him and found it to be one of his most difficult qualities, once having exclaimed in frustration that Jon was _practically more bookworm than human._ She would express her frustration as to why he wouldn’t just _go outside and play,_ and what he now knew she had meant was _with other kids,_ but instead Jon would just pick a direction and start walking, cataloguing every building on every street corner, every street in every direction, until his feet got tired or he got lost or both. He did not think himself at the time to be disobeying her, as he was simply performing his own admittedly antisocial iteration of _go outside and play,_ but his grandmother would be furious nonetheless. 

But Jon’s voracious appetite for books was something Elias generally condoned much moreso than his grandmother (although it had always made him act rather exasperatingly like he knew something Jon didn’t). By the time he finished elementary school he had just about read everything worth reading in the school library, so when he got to middle school in sixth grade and still had no real friends to speak of, suffice to say his every free moment during the school day was spent hunting down new reading material. 

He hadn’t been having much luck that day. 

Jon’s entire lunch period had been spent flitting between shelves and seeking whatever it was that his fickle brain actually _wanted_ to read. He only managed to become increasingly restless. None of the titles on any of the shelves seemed to catch his attention. Time was rapidly slipping away from him; soon the bell would ring, and he would not have anything to show for it, a thought which made him disproportionately uneasy. 

The librarian had been watching his plight however, unbeknownst to him. Rather-- the school’s usual librarian had recently gone on maternity leave, and this man, a stout older gentleman with blonde hair beginning to gray and a hint of an accent Jon couldn’t place, was their long-term substitute. Right before Jon managed to frustrate himself to tears, the librarian pulled him aside. 

“Young man,” said the librarian, “I can’t help but notice that you appear to be quite an avid reader. It’s so good to see youths such as yourself so passionate about the pursuit of knowledge,” he’d said with an odd gleam in his eye unexpected for such a bland reader’s pleasantry. 

“I… suppose so,” Jon had said, conscious of the clock ticking down the time until he would have to leave. 

“Yet you would seem to be having a bit of trouble… finding something that pleases the eye,” said the librarian. 

That, Jon knew, was definitely an odd phrasing. The librarian definitely meant something else, Jon realized-- and more troubling-- expected Jon to understand as well. 

“If that is the case,” the other man had continued, “might I suggest a book from my personal collection? I’m sure someone of your… particular alignment will find it most fascinating indeed.” 

Jon, quickly becoming confused and uncomfortable at that point, was about to make up an apology and excuse himself. But his eyes fell upon the book that the man produced from his bag, and Jon’s blood went cold. 

He didn’t know what it was about it, exactly. The book had the size and shape he might have expected from a children’s book, but not the… the whimsy of it, or the safety. 

It was monochrome in color, and had an illustration of a spider on the back cover that filled him with dread. The words _A Guest for Mr. Spider_ were half-written, half-gouged into the front cover. But sure enough, there was something about it that made the part of his mind that was ever-aching to _know things constantly_ strain against the leash of his common sense, saying _that’s the one._

The bell rang at that moment, and his hands were already reaching for it before he could think better of it, like they had a mind of their own. 

He managed to forget about the strange book for the rest of the school day. By the time he had arrived home that afternoon the book had not yet resurfaced in his mind, so he had gotten himself a snack and managed to sit through most of an episode of something on TV. Elias had not quite yet gotten home. When he returned to his room and reached into his backpack to see if he had any work that needed doing, however, his hand brushed against it and a chill went through him. 

Homework, he decided, could wait. 

He had only gotten through a handful of pages. 

The thing is, Jon hardly remembered even so much as opening the book. He remembered the lurching twist of his stomach when his hand first fell upon it. He remembered feeling afraid. He remembered feeling very afraid. But the next thing that happened with any real clarity was the door to his room opening with tremendous force, the _bang_ as it hit the wall, and Elias standing in the doorway. 

_“Drop the book,_ ” he had said. 

Suddenly, the air was static, and Jon’s hands were static, and before he even realized what was happening the book went tumbling out of his grip. It landed unceremoniously upon the ground half-open, and Jon’s eyes were glued to the pages as they rapidly fell shut, the movement making the image of the spider on the pages perform a sort of awful, jerking dance. 

“E- Elias?” Jon sputtered, heart thundering in his chest. 

For another beat there was quiet, and Elias had his eyes scrunched shut as though he had also felt some adverse effect from whatever it was that had swept through the room. Then he stepped forward quickly, picking up the book. 

“Where did you get this?” 

“Elias, I-- um, I, what’s--” 

“Answer,” he had snapped, though the odd static bite to his tone was gone.

“The-- um-- the, the library,” Jon stammered ineloquently. “The school library.” 

“Yes, and who _gave_ it to you?” 

“Th- the librarian?? I mean, I guess-- the substitute. Our regular librarian is-- it was the long term substitute, his name is…” Jon paused a moment; the man was so strange, and whenever anyone said his name it always took him a beat too long to respond, as if there was something not quite right about it. 

“What was his name?” Elias prompted him. 

“M- Mr. Icarus,” Jon said. 

Elias paused for a moment and then hissed a curse under his breath, storming out of the room. Jon, bewildered, stumbled after him. 

He was digging through a drawer and muttering something about _the web’s enemy_ when Jon caught up to him, just in time to watch him fish out a lighter and set the book ablaze. 

_“Elias!_ ” Jon protested. “You can’t just go around setting library books on fire, I’ll get a fine!” 

“A _fine!_ ” Elias barked. “There are worse things in this world than that.” The book rapidly succumbed to the fire and crumbled into ash. Jon stared at it, absolutely floored. 

“What on _earth_ is your problem??” Jon demanded. “It’s-- it’s just a book!!” 

Then Elias gave him an odd look, and Jon froze under the intensity of it. 

“Did it _feel_ like just a book?” He asked. 

Jon hesitated, remembering the moment he had accepted the book, hands guided by something unseen, remembered the sense of paralyzing dread that had filled him. 

“Jonathan Sims, listen to me. You are _not ready_ for-- for _whatever_ that man was trying to guide you toward. Do you understand? I-- I don’t _ever_ want you returning to that library.” 

“What do you mean, you don’t _want_ me to return?” Jon said, half derisively and half nervously. “I can’t just-- what if I have to go for class?” 

“Then _skip_ if you have to,” Elias insisted, “and I’ll sort out the consequences myself.” 

“Skip?” Jon repeated, stunned. 

_He’s serious,_ Jon had realized then. Elias was just as shaken as Jon was. 

“I don’t want you going back. It’s too dangerous-- that is _final.”_

That was how he got Elias breathing down his damn neck about his every choice of reading material for the next couple of years until he finally calmed down about it. He had started taking Jon to the public library instead, so at least Jon didn’t have to go without anything to read at all. (Actually, that ended up being where and how he met Sasha, but that was a story for another time.) 

It was also how Jon developed his minor spider phobia, but that was something he tried not to talk about much. It was easier to just leave it at _I don’t like spiders_ than explain that a cursed book about evil spiders tried to kill him once, if that was what had even happened at all. Hence why Martin didn’t know; to Jon it was simpler to let him think the unease he felt towards arachnids was garden-variety dislike. Elias was weird, though, which was not news, and tended to react warily towards any perceived spider-related slights against Jon. 

He always had the distinct impression that Elias thought spiders were somehow out to _get_ Jon. Somehow, Jon had never quite had it in him to entirely discount the possibility. 

In the present, though, their dinner was done. 

“Everything alright?” Elias asked him as he handed Jon his plate. “You’ve been rather quiet.” 

“I’m fine,” Jon said a little too quickly, and then forced himself to relax, letting the tension of the memory fade away. “I’m alright. Just-- thinking, that’s all,” he assured him. 

Elias did not look particularly convinced, but he decided not to pursue the matter. “If you say so.”

Then he turned to leave, most likely to take his food up to his study and try to get some work done, and Jon felt a twinge of something old and sentimental. 

“Thanks,” Jon said suddenly. 

“...What ever for?” 

“Would you believe me if I said ‘dinner’?” 

Elias offered him a small smile. “If you were more convincing, perhaps,” he said gently. “Just take it easy.” 

“I-- I will,” Jon promised. 

He took his food back to his room, sent Sasha a message to check up on her, and only thought about spiders a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the last half of this chapter while listening to spider dance from the undertale ost. *SPIDERS INTENSIFY* 
> 
> Also-- I know what it looks like, but there will be no web!Martin here. Even if Elias isn’t so convinced. 
> 
> I had lots of fun writing Elias, actually. And I promise I’ll eventually explain what happened to granny Sims and how Elias ended up with Jon in more detail as well. 
> 
> Actually, I started writing my plans for this fic right after listening to episode 47. At the time I had already planned on giving Jon dead parents and handing him over to Elias and somehow giving him a traumatic Leitner encounter. You have NO idea how stoked I was when I got to season 3 and the first episode handed me literally everything I wanted.


	4. Chapter 4

First period classes were always the least pleasant because Jon was always the least awake, especially on Monday. He had never really been much of a morning person to begin with, and if he had ended up getting less sleep than usual last night because he was up until 2AM binging wikipedia articles, that was his business. 

Jon rubbed his eyes blearily as he noticed his classmates reaching into their bags, the sound of paper rustling and the low hum of conversational murmur bringing him back to reality. 

“You look like a zombie today,” Tim pointed out. 

“I thought you said I look like a zombie all the time.” 

“Yeah, well, I mean you look even more like shit than usual,” Tim insisted. If Martin had been present he would probably have objected to that phrasing, but he was currently at the restroom. “You okay? Have trouble sleeping or something?” 

“...You could say that,” Jon said sheepishly. “Now… I didn’t exactly catch what we were supposed to be doing,” Jon said, looking around the room to see his peers already getting to work. “What’d the teacher say?” 

“No idea,” said Tim cheerfully. “Wasn’t paying attention, either.” 

“Oh, lovely,” Jon said sarcastically. 

Beside him, Michael, who had been doodling away intensely all morning thus far, drew one more decisive curve on his page and shut his notebook. “We’re supposed to be taking notes on chapter three and doing workbook questions one through nine,” he supplied helpfully. 

“I-- oh, uh… thanks,” Jon mumbled, a bit perplexed. 

“Of course,” said Michael, reaching into his backpack. 

_I’m going to keep this to myself,_ thought Jon on the matter of his mild annoyance. Of course, within two minutes, curiosity got the better of him. 

“How did you know that if you weren’t paying attention, either?” Jon suddenly asked, immediately wishing he would mind his own business. 

Michael looked up from his textbook. “Sorry, what?” 

“I just mean, since you were over there, drawing, I don’t see how you knew any better than Tim or I what we were supposed to be doing.”

There was a momentary pause, during which Jon felt rightfully like a rude annoyance, but then Michael just laughed. 

“Ohhhh,” he said. “No, I _am_ paying attention. Drawing helps me concentrate, actually. Keeps my focus from wandering off, you know? Otherwise it’s just like, in one ear, out the other,” he said and laughed a little. 

“I… I see,” said Jon, beginning to feel rather like a jerk for his earlier assumptions. “Uh, sorry. To bother you, I mean.” 

“No worries,” said Michael, clicking his pen a few times. “Maybe I’ll show you some of my drawings one of these days,” he said, but his tone was joking, and Jon wasn’t entirely sure how he was meant to reply. 

He was saved from having to do so by Martin’s return and, as he was filling him in on what the assignment was, made a mental note to himself to be a little less hostile to Michael in the future. 

* * *

On the following day, Martin was already there when Jon went to stop by his locker before his next period. It was not a very spacious affair, but it was big enough to keep his math books in, and Jon, not being known for his strength, had decided the inconvenience of having to go get them was outweighed by the fact that it meant he didn’t have to lug them around all day. (That, and there was only so much space in his backpack.) 

When he opened it up and found a slip of notebook paper that had been tucked inside, he was not very surprised. 

“Got another one,” he directed to Martin, who was standing off to the side and looking on his phone as he waited for Jon to be done. 

“Oh, really?” Martin said neutrally, not facing him. 

“‘Least I’m pretty sure,” Jon said, unfolding the scrap of paper. “...Yep, here we go. Another note from my supposed _secret admirer,_ ” he said skeptically. 

It was a short poem, from the looks of it. It was written in pencil with a deliberately neat handwriting, and it was double-spaced. It read:  
  


_Eyes bright emerald green,_

_like the final leaf before it turns_

_The others, red and orange behind it_

_only make the last more stunning than before_

_as they fall, spiralling down,_

_like I have, into my love for you._

_Yours,_

_your secret admirer_ _  
  
_

It was nothing spectacularly special, exactly, sappy and blandly seasonally appropriate. It had a little heart drawn at the end.

“Hm,” Jon mumbled as he grabbed his books. 

“Was this one any good?” asked Martin in a measuredly flat tone. 

“It was just about as charming as it was dull,” Jon decided charitably, and Martin hummed passively. “You know, when I started getting these every so often right around valentine’s day of _last year_ I’d rather thought it must’ve been somebody trying to make a joke at my expense, but… it’s been going on long enough that I’m a bit, er… _surprised_ by the persistence.” 

Jon closed his locker and started off towards his next class, Martin quietly trailing behind him. “I mean, I’ve already gotten three of them this year now. Isn’t that peculiar?” Jon continued. “Either this is a very elaborate prank, or… I-- I don’t even _know_ what this could possibly be about.” 

“You really think somebody would go to all that effort as a joke?” Martin asked skeptically.

“I mean… I don’t know,” Jon admitted. “To tell you the truth, I’m starting to think they might actually be sincere.” 

“Oh, you’re starting to think,” Martin echoed. 

“Yes, but-- well, that hardly seems likely, either,” Jon responded, perplexed. “It’s all very… weird.” 

“Really? You find it that hard to believe it’s even _possible_ there’s someone out there who genuinely likes you?” Martin asked, his brows knit together.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Martin,” Jon said, and Martin just sighed. 

The warning bell rang, and Martin jumped a little at the sound. 

“Look, I’d better get to class,” said Martin. “You should get a move on, too. Elias will have a heart attack if you’re _tardy,_ god forbid,” he joked, smiling a little. 

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Jon smiled back sheepishly. “I’ll see you later?” 

“Is that a question? I can’t exactly _avoid_ you,” Martin pointed out. 

“Well, I-- yes, but-- you know what I _mean,_ ” Jon protested.

Martin laughed and, after a brief moment of hesitation, he leaned over and wrapped an arm around Jon in a quick hug. 

“Good luck figuring out those poems,” he said, and left before Jon could formulate a reply.

* * *

It was about fifteen minutes to the end of fourth period when Michael saw him. It had been a quiet day thus far, mostly; _boring_ might have been a better word for it, but sometimes boring was ultimately the best you could ask for. Michael was just spacing out behind the checkout counter when the doors swung open and a familiar figure entered the room. 

“Hello, Jon,” Michael greeted him with a wave. 

Jon stopped in his tracks. _“Michael?_ What are you doing here?” He asked, bewildered. Michael couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. 

“I’m a library TA this period, Jon,” Michael said, quietly amused by the embarrassment that crept onto the other boy’s face. 

“Oh,” he said stiffly, looking firmly away from Michael’s bright gaze. “Well, uh… I-- I’m actually a TA this period as well. Er-- Office assistant, technically, I mean.” 

“Well, what do you know,” Michael said. “What are you doing at the library, then? Not skipping, I should hope?”

“I- I- er, I finished early, so I thought-- I was just going to find something else to read-- I have a pass,” Jon stammered, handing Michael the slip of paper. 

Michael laughed. “Very well, then. You don’t need to sound so _nervous,_ you know,” he said innocently. “It’s not like I’m going to stop you from checking out a book.” 

“R- Right,” Jon said nervously, readjusting the strap of his backpack. “Well, then, if you’ll excuse me…” he mumbled as he stepped awkwardly away from the counter and set about finding himself some new books. 

Michael watched him out of the corner of his eye, amused. He had always rather liked Jon, though the opportunity to push his buttons a bit was just too good to pass up. 

He thought about earlier that week, when Jon had asked him about how he could pay attention and doodle at the same time. He supposed that given the tone of the question, he perhaps ought to have intuited that Jon did not like him very much or at least thought him to be a nuisance. He sort of hoped that wasn’t true, but if that was the case, well, it still would not stop him in the slightest. (It certainly didn’t stop him from impulsively offering to show him his drawings, which was perhaps not his smartest of moves, but hey.)

Eventually, though, Jon returned to the counter with a handful of selections. 

“Great,” Michael said as he scanned them, “can I see your student ID, please?” 

“Yeah, one moment,” Jon mumbled, and reached into his backpack. Then he raised his eyebrows and checked a different pouch, then his pockets. 

“Um,” Jon said sheepishly, “I… appear to have… I think I left it on my desk at home.” 

“Oh, no worries,” Michael assured him quickly, reaching over to the computer beside him, “I can just look you up in the library system.” 

“Thank you,” said Jon, relieved. 

“No problem. What’s your last name again? Bouchard, right?” Michael asked, but Jon immediately scrunched up his face in apparent disgust. “What-- why do you look so affronted?” 

“It’s _Sims,_ ” Jon informed him firmly. “One ‘M’. And I know why you thought that, but-- ugh-- Elias isn’t my dad. I mean, I guess he’s _Mr. Bouchard_ to you.” 

“Oh, I just thought--” 

“We’re not actually related,” continued Jon. 

“R- Right,” Michael stammered, “no, of course, I just, uh, forgot-- I mean-- hahah, you have th- the same eyes, so I had thought--” 

“Oh my _god,_ why does _everyone_ say we have the same eyes??” Jon wondered aloud, and Michael wanted to die right there on the spot. God, he couldn’t get through a single _week_ without saying or doing something stupid in front of this particular boy. The universe was out to get him, he decided. He finished checking the books out with his face burning in embarrassment and wishing very strongly that a meteor would strike the school so he wouldn’t have to face another human being ever again. 

“Um, sorry,” Michael mumbled awkwardly as he stamped the last book and pushed them towards Jon. 

Jon sighed a little, a hint of a smile on his lips. “No, no, don’t worry about it. Happens all the time. Really, you’d be amazed by how many people love to point out the eyes. They’ll go like, _oh, but the resemblance, I never would have guessed!_ But I mean, aside from that, we don’t even look alike at all! Is it really _that_ hard to believe I’m adopted? _Damn,_ ” he said. “I mean, darn, I guess,” he amended, glancing around to see if any teachers were within earshot (there weren’t). 

Michael lowered his voice and said jokingly, “hey, pal, watch your _fucking_ language.” 

Jon burst out laughing at that, and Michael felt relieved, smiling again. Jon opened his bag and started to put his books away, saying, “well, thank you, Michael. I’m going to start heading to my next class. See you tomorrow.” Michael nodded as Jon turned to leave. 

“Until next time, Archivist,” Michael said, and they both froze. 

He had no idea where that had come from. He just-- opened his mouth, and for some reason that was what spilled out. An odd feeling came over Michael as he processed it; it was like jamming a key into a not-quite-right door, grating and dissonant, right and not right. It made no sense. 

“ _Archivist?_ " Jon repeated, confused, turning back to look at him. “That’s, uh, a rather funny way of saying ‘office assistant’,” he joked a little weakly. 

“I… I suppose you’re right, I don’t really know what came over me,” Michael admitted nervously. 

Mercifully, the bell rang, and Jon excused himself and left. It also gave Michael a good reason not to ponder what the hell had just happened, but he stared after Jon as he left for another moment, perplexed. 

Eventually, Michael realized that he could feel the librarian’s eyes on the back of his head, and a bit of a chill went through him, unbidden. When he turned around to speak to her, though, no one was there. 

* * *

On Thursday, Martin was out sick with a cold. It wasn’t like Jon had _never_ been at school without Martin before, but it did make him realize anew just how dreadfully dull the school day could be without him. It crawled by at a snail’s pace, dragging on insufferably, but it _did_ end. 

However, when Jon stepped into the school bus to ride home, he remembered much to his chagrin that it was Martin who always saved him a seat, and now the bus was crowded and full, just about every seat taken. He sighed. 

He had just resigned himself to pacing the length of the bus and awkwardly asking some stranger to move their backpack so he could sit down when he caught sight of movement towards the far back of the bus: a boy with long dark hair wearing a leather jacket over a band T-shirt was waving to him cheerfully, beckoning him over. Jon suppressed yet another sigh as he complied, maneuvering through the cramped center aisle full of errant bags and legs to sit down next to the boy. 

“Hello, Gerry,” Jon said, raising his voice a little above the clamor as the bus began to depart. 

“‘Sup?” Gerry asked genially, pulling one earbud out. “You looked like you wandered into the wrong funeral and didn’t want to be rude by leaving, so I thought you might like a place to sit.” 

“Er-- right,” Jon said. “Thank you.” 

Gerry was sort of an unavoidable constant; he had apparently decided that Jon was going to be his friend at some point and there simply wasn’t much to be done about it. Still, Jon did actually like him quite a bit-- he had a fun sense of humor, and was actually a pretty good listener. 

“So, how’ve you been holding up lately, huh?” Gerry asked. 

“Oh, just fine, mostly. Same as ever, I suppose. You?” 

“I’m good, thank you,” Gerry said, tapping his fingers to the rhythm of whatever he was listening to. His hands were covered in tattoos of simple, stylized eyes. Jon happened to know he had quite a number of those, including a ring of them around his neck like a choker and apparently one over his heart. 

At the bottom of Jon’s list of Weird Friends: probably Tim and Sasha and probably Georgie, if he could still call her a friend. They were just people trying to live their lives, occasionally beset upon by supernatural inconveniences. At the top end of the list-- while not strictly speaking a _friend_ in the traditional sense-- was Elias, of course, who was probably the single weirdest person Jon knew. Directly below him on that list was definitely Gerry. 

“So, read anything good lately?” Gerry asked him after a moment. 

“Ah-- not really, I guess. I-- I went to the library yesterday to grab a few new books, but I’ve been too busy to really crack into them, unfortunately,” Jon said. 

Gerry hummed sympathetically. “That sucks. Must be hard on the eyes, hm?” He said with a slight conspiratorial note to his tone, complete with a wink. 

Case in point. 

When they’d first met, Gerry kept saying so many obnoxiously mystifying things in that vein that Jon had half-thought he was planning to steal his eyes or something. 

He also kept-- expecting Jon to _get_ it, if there was in fact anything to get. It was like Gerry was sharing an inside joke with him, except that Jon was absolutely not in on it, and it didn’t make any sense but at this point it was just too awkward to correct him. Actually, at one point he had repeated to Elias the joke about how Gerry talked to him so much about cryptic eye nonsense that Jon thought he was going to steal his eyes. Elias had responded neutrally at the time, but the next day, he’d seen Gerry exiting the principal’s office, looking rather embarrassed and annoyed, like he’d just been given a stern talking-to. Of course, Jon had no good reason to think those events were actually related, because he’d readily believe that Gerry had told a teacher to fuck off one too many times or something, but it was a funny coincidence. 

Jon had taken to staring out the window by this point. He did not like sitting in the way back of the bus. Somehow it was always louder back there, and it was starting to grate on his nerves. Eventually Gerry seemed to notice this, and he held out an earbud in Jon’s direction. 

“Wanna listen to my music with me?” He offered. 

It couldn’t possibly be much worse than listening to the people in the seat in front of them make increasingly bizarre dick jokes, so Jon said, “sure.” 

He accepted it, and that was how he ended up listening to My Chemical Romance music at a volume slightly too high for comfort the rest of the way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I was very happy to get to introduce Gerry and spend a little more time with Michael, even if those two _are_ making things more complicated right now :) 
> 
> The poem featured in the second scene was written for this story by my partner in crime, Librius. Due to that and several other reasons I have decided to add them as a co-author on the story. (I also felt very bad having Jon act all “ugh another cringe poem from my fail secret admirer” about it, but far be it from me to stop him from being stupid about emotions.) 
> 
> I really enjoyed doing this chapter with its four individual scenes. If you had a favorite one, I’d love to hear which! ^^ until next time!


	5. Chapter 5

It so happened that Michael was about two minutes late for his fourth period. 

Jon knew this because he himself arrived shortly before him, having received permission to spend this period in the library working on an essay. He was getting himself set up at one of the tables with a library laptop, looking through his binder to find the project’s rubric, when the doors swung open and Michael hurried inside, apparently out of breath. 

Normally he supposed the odds would have been pretty good that Michael’s minor lateness would not have been noticed or commented on, but it so happened that the librarian stepped out of her office right as Michael entered the room, already looking cross. 

“Good afternoon, Ms. Robinson,” Michael said cheerfully. 

“Yes, hello, Michael,” Ms. Robinson said. “Why are you not on time?” 

Michael readjusted the strap of his backpack. “Oh, there was a new student who was lost in the halls. I, um, thought it would’ve been rude of me not to stop and help,” he said and laughed nervously. 

“I see,” said the librarian disapprovingly. “Well, Michael, going out of your way to be _helpful_ is all well and good, except when it impacts your own attendance. Do try to be on time tomorrow,” she said, and Michael turned his eyes down. 

“Yes, Ms. Robinson,” Michael mumbled. 

Jon tried not to watch him out of the corner of his eye as Michael pulled himself together and set about his business. 

For a little while it was quiet, and he focused on his paper. When Jon had arrived, the stragglers of a third-period English class were still filing out, having been doing a class activity in the library. There had been papers left on most of the tables, and eventually Michael came and started collecting them all up to take to the front counter. 

“Hi, Jon!” Michael said as he stopped by his table. Jon had already arranged all the stray papers on his table into a neat stack and pushed them to the edge of the table, and Michael picked them up, smiling gratefully. “How’ve you been? Hard at work, I see?” 

“Oh, I’m good,” Jon said, looking up from the dim laptop screen. “Yeah, I’ve got something due in a couple days, so they let me come here to work on it.” 

“Oh, that’s good. Good luck on your assignment,” Michael said, smiling. 

“Michael,” the librarian said from the counter. “Stop distracting Mr. Sims over there and finish what you’re doing.” 

“R- Right,” Michael winced. Then, quieter, to Jon he added, “uh, sorry to disturb you.” 

“You’re not bothering me at all,” Jon assured him, but Michael just grimaced and went to the next table. 

A couple minutes later, the doors opened and another student walked into the library. 

This in and of itself did not draw a reaction from either Jon or Michael, but the doors could shut kind of heavily at times, and when they did, Michael jumped and proceeded to stumble into an errant chair that had not been pushed in all the way. He tripped spectacularly. The chair tipped over and fell on top of him. 

_“Owww,_ ” he hissed from the floor, looking pained and embarrassed. 

“What is the meaning of all this racket??” The librarian poked her head out from her office, and then her eyes found her assistant, on the floor, clutching his ankle. “My _goodness,_ Michael! Are you alright?” 

She made her way to his side before he managed a reply. “Are you hurt? Can you stand?” 

“Y- Yeah, I think I’m fine,” Michael said through gritted teeth. 

Ms. Robinson set the fallen chair back upright and extended a hand down to help him up, and he took it, rising awkwardly. 

“Thanks,” he said brightly as he dusted himself off. 

“Yes, well,” Ms. Robinson said, appearing more at ease now that Michael was back on his feet, “next time, please be more careful, hm? Can’t have you breaking a bone in the library or anything.” 

Jon managed to turn his head back to his computer right before Michael shot a glance in his direction. God, he was so bad at minding his own business. He needed to focus on his assignment, not on The Misadventures Of An Unfortunate Library TA. 

He sighed and forced himself to double down on work, and for a while it was fine. He tried to tune out the fluorescent buzz of the lights and the ticking of the clock with moderate success. The minutes crawled by. Jon kept checking the time, not sure if he wanted it to hurry up so he could go home already or slow down so he could write better. Both? He was starting to really hate this assignment in particular. 

To his credit, Jon managed to get about a page and a half done before his brain simply refused to focus any longer. He started getting sidetracked while looking up sources and reading about unrelated topics, he started thinking about the funny joke Sasha had told at lunch earlier, he started thinking a dozen unrelated thoughts that blurred together at the edges. He looked up from the screen to give his eyes a break, blinking. 

He scanned the room. Ms. Robinson was behind the checkout counter, rifling through a drawer. Michael was half-limping between bookcases, reshelving books. Another student on the far side of the room-- the one who he had seen entering earlier-- looked up at the same time Jon did, and their eyes met. She waved. 

It was Jane, from English class. Jon supposed she was here doing the same thing he was. Jon waved back, a little sheepishly, and turned back to his laptop. 

Jane was alright. Mostly. She was the sort of person who was fairly nice in a _classmate you’re on decent terms with_ sort of way, but somebody who was not necessarily good to have as a friend. Someone you could work on a group project with and get along fine, but someone who you’d start to get uncomfortable talking to given enough time. Her sense of boundaries was not spectacular, and she had been called _toxic_ by several people who knew her. 

Jon didn’t have any problems with her, personally, though. Still, he generally made a point of keeping their relationship firmly in a place of _polite acquaintances_. He had no desire to find out just how toxic she might actually be; he had enough on his plate as it was. 

Not the point, he realized, shaking his head. He needed to get back to work. 

He managed another ten minutes before his brain ground to a halt again, and he just stared at the keyboard. 

“Ms. Robinson?” Jon heard Michael ask eventually. “Someone tore one of the pages in this book, and it’s nearly falling out. What should we do?” 

Ms. Robinson sighed. “Let me see it,” she said. 

Michael passed her the book. As he was reaching back, he accidentally knocked over the stack of papers he’d collected earlier, and they all went fluttering to the ground in a messy heap. Michael jerked back in surprise, and Ms. Robinson’s grip tightened on the book.

“Goodness,” he exclaimed. “Whoops! Clumsy me,” he laughed awkwardly. “I’ll pick those up, sorry about that.” 

“Michael Shelley, what on _earth_ has gotten into you today?!” Ms. Robinson snapped. 

Michael looked up from where he had already knelt down to scoop up the papers. “I’m-- sorry?” 

“You can apologize a thousand times, but what good does that do anyone unless you actually start being more careful??” 

“It-- it was an accident,” Michael protested. 

“Yes, and it wouldn’t have happened if only you would just pay attention to your surroundings for once!” Ms. Robinson said scathingly. “Goodness _gracious_ , you and your head in the clouds… You are _aware_ I’m under no obligation to give you a passing grade this period if your performance is always going to be this poor, are you not?” 

“I’m sorry, I’m-- I’m picking them up,” Michael said quietly, hands trembling as he did so. 

In fact, as he stood up and fumbled with the messy jumble of pages clutched in his unsteady grip, they simply slipped through his fingers yet again. Michael stared in dismay at the floor. 

Just then the phone in Ms. Robinson’s office started to ring, and she sighed. “Good _grief,_ just leave them be. I’ll do it myself when I get back,” she said sharply as she went into the office, closing the door heavily behind her. 

Michael stared after her for a moment, shoulders shaking. Then he grabbed his backpack from behind the counter, turned around and marched out the door into the hall, sniffling. 

Jon glanced at the clock, then at his laptop, then the door. He stood up after only a moment’s hesitation. 

When he opened the door and exited the library, he quickly found Michael, sitting with his back to the wall and his head in his hands. During class periods, the halls were often dead-empty, and Jon was the only one to see Michael’s little breakdown. He did briefly wonder if he had any right to be coming after him at all, but pushed the thought from his head. He could not simply be a bystander. It would be easier, and he didn’t know what to say now that he had arrived, but here he was nonetheless. 

He took a quick breath, steeling himself, and sat down next to Michael on the cold linoleum-tile floor. 

“Hey,” he said quietly. “I, uh… I’m sorry. I heard how she spoke to you just now. Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Michael responded through tears. Jon mentally kicked himself for asking such a stupid question. 

“Ms. Robinson didn’t need to snap at you like that,” Jon said quietly. “It wasn’t like you did it on purpose. You didn’t deserve that.” 

Michael looked up. His face was red, and his hair was messy. “It’s-- it’s fine, I’m used to it. She’s like that all the time,” he sniffled. “God, I just feel like I can n- never do _anything_ right in her eyes…” 

“I’m sorry,” Jon said, uncomfortable and sympathetic. “I… I get it. My grandmother used to get like that a lot. E- Elias too, sometimes, but not nearly as often as she would. Sometimes it feels like there’s just nothing you can do.”

“Yeah…,” Michael agreed, relaxing a little. Then he reached a hand up to wipe his eyes, but quickly jerked it away, hissing suddenly with pain. 

_“Shit,_ ” he exclaimed, blinking furiously. 

“Are you alright??”

“P- Papercut,” Michael explained, holding his hand up to examine through fresh tears. Sure enough, a thin cut ran down the side of his left index finger. “Oh, fantastic. Now I’ve got blood in my eye and salt in the cut. Great! Absolutely superb, this day could not possibly get any better.” He laughed a little, and the sound was nearly hysterical. 

Jon did not know how to formulate a reply to that. Before he could, though, Michael calmly reached into his bag, rummaged around, and then produced a smushed-up box of plastic bandaids. Jon just stared at him as he casually began to apply one that was an eye-searingly neon shade of green, and before he could catch himself, Jon started laughing. 

“I’m s- sorry,” Jon gasped as Michael’s eyebrows rose in confusion. “It’s just-- I’ve always wondered about all the bandaids you wear.” 

Michael managed a smile, then, weak as it was. “I… yeah. I’m quite clumsy, unfortunately, and, well… They only have the fabric kind in the nurse’s office, and I _hate_ those.” 

“Oh, I get what you mean,” Jon agreed. 

_“Right?_ They’re insufferable. I can _never_ manage to stop myself from picking at the threads until it’s unravelled.” 

“And if you get so much as half a drop of water on them, they’re instantly toast,” Jon added. 

“Exactly, I can’t stand it,” Michael agreed. He seemed a little calmer now, thankfully, and Jon felt relieved at that. “Um… sorry, what time is it?” 

“Uhhh…” Jon fished his phone out of his pocket. “We’ve got about three minutes.” 

“Fantastic,” Michael sighed, hauling himself to his feet. “Well, I guess I’d better pull myself together then.” 

Jon stood as well, and then Michael said, “hey, Jon… thank you. For checking on me. Really, I mean it.” 

“Of course,” Jon said as they re-entered the library. 

Jon went back to the table he’d been working at and began to put his things away. Somehow, despite everything, he’d still managed to get a reasonable amount of work done on his assignment, so he supposed he couldn’t complain. He took the library laptop back to the checkout counter as the bell rang, and Ms. Robinson came to accept it. 

“Jonathan,” she said. “Could I see you in my office for a moment?” 

Hm. That didn’t bode well. 

* * *

Ms. Robinson closed the door behind him. 

“I’m only telling you this because I know what you are and who your keeper is,” she said, and Jon immediately felt nervous. “While your concern for the being which calls itself Michael is… touching, I think you quite deserve to know what it is you’re really dealing with.” 

“Wh- what?” He asked. 

“You don’t need to feign ignorance here, Jonathan,” she said tiredly. “I think you’ve already suspected as much yourself. Michael Shelley is not human.” 

The words hit him like a brick of ice. 

“When did you first notice his appearance?” Ms. Robinson asked simply. 

“I’m-- I’m going to be late, I need to go,” Jon deflected. 

“I’ll write you a pass, then. Answer the question.” 

“...Just a couple weeks ago,” he admitted unwillingly. “First period. It-- it was a Tuesday.”

“And despite the fact that you’d never heard of him before, everyone simply acted as though he had always been there,” Ms. Robinson finished. “Any attempts to bring up the discrepancy were met with resistance and disbelief.”

“I-- Yes.” 

Ms. Robinson looked at him with an unplaceable expression. “Your wariness was, in fact, completely founded, Mr. Sims. Despite your peers’ claims to the contrary, Michael did not _exist_ as we know it before that day. He simply showed up, and the world distorted around him. You saw it, too, but that creature has put on such a convincing act that you’ve started to forget, hm?” 

Jon processed her claims in silence. 

“No matter how real its tears may seem, Jonathan, Michael is not human,” she said, “and not like us. As with all such beings of its particular… affinity, everything it says or does is likely to be a deception. Do not mistrust the warnings your mind gives you, Mr. Sims.”

Something about the way she said that only filled Jon with anger. 

He was used to cryptic, ominous warnings from Elias and even Gerry’s brand of eccentricity. _Elias_ could get away with giving him weirdly specific, pseudo-clairvoyant insights that made Jon feel like he’d plucked them right out of his own skull because he _trusted_ him, in all his weirdness. Coming from somebody else-- like this?-- the part about not mistrusting the warnings his mind gave-- Ms. Robinson had no _right_ to know that about him! 

Was this really the hill he was going to die on? Everything she’d said about Michael was, as far as he knew, accurate. He _had_ been starting to forget that behind his awkward demeanor and myriad of quirks, Michael wasn’t exactly what he seemed. 

But suddenly, that couldn’t matter less to Jon. If Jon wanted to be friends with a monster, that was his prerogative. If Jon watched somebody burst into tears and decided to feel nothing about it and do nothing about it-- no, he didn’t _care_ what Michael was! 

Ms. Robinson’s gaze darkened, as though she could tell what conclusion Jon had arrived at. 

“Ms. Robinson,” Jon said, clenching his teeth through his quiet outrage, “if that’s all you wanted to tell me, then I think I’d best be going now.” 

A beat of silence followed. “Very well,” Ms. Robinson relented, moving to her desk to write a pass for Jon as promised. “If that’s the way you feel, then I won’t try to argue with you,” she said, handing it to him, “but I’ll be keeping an eye on you to ensure that you don’t come to harm at Michael’s hands.” 

Jon took it, bit back a white-hot retort, and spent the rest of the day trying to quell his fury. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) 
> 
> Sorry for my crimes, unfortunately as the author I have no choice but to bully Michael. 
> 
> So… how are yall liking it so far? According to my notes, this chapter marks the end of the beginning. ‘Til next week.


	6. Chapter 6

Jon was jarred from his thoughts by the feeling of arms wrapping around his shoulders from behind, tensing for a moment before he heard a familiar voice. “Hey, stranger!” It said brightly. 

_ “Jesus,  _ Sasha!” Jon exclaimed. “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” he admonished her, but she just grinned, and he smiled back despite himself. Feigning reluctance, he leaned back and let her hug him. 

“So, where is everyone?” Sasha asked when she released him. 

They were in the cafeteria, before classes began for the day, and Jon had been sitting by himself with a book in his lap. 

“Ah… Martin had to go and talk to a teacher. Tim, I think, is with his brother at the moment, but I’m not sure.” Tim’s younger brother Danny was a freshman this year, while Tim, Jon and their friends were in their junior year. 

“I see,” Sasha responded. She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then grinned and held her hand out to him. “Come walk with me?” 

“Where to?” Jon said as he took it, hauling himself to his feet. 

“Nowhere, really. Just wanted to hang out a bit,” Sasha said, and Jon smiled a little as they set off. 

Jon zipped up his jacket as they stepped outside into the crisp early-November air, Sasha readjusting her backpack and looping an arm around his. They walked aimlessly around campus, shuffling by groups of students talking and laughing and complaining. 

“How’ve you been lately?” Jon inquired. 

“Oh, I’m alright, I suppose,” she replied. “Same as ever. Same old, same old,” she laughed a little, quietly. 

“Are you sure? You look-- tired,” he said apprehensively. 

“Jon…” 

“I’m not trying to nag, I just…” he sighed. 

“I know,” Sasha told him gently. “Really, I’m doing alright. I think I’m-- all caught up, actually, on my homework I mean. In all my classes. Everything’s going well.” 

“And did you remember to eat dinner yesterday?” 

“Yes,” she lied. 

“Really,” Jon said skeptically. “What did you have? If you say ‘two slices of toast and a gatorade’, I’m going to kick your ass.” 

“Good thing that wasn’t it, then,” she countered, grinning. 

“Fine, then it was a bowl of cereal at ten o’clock at night.” 

Sasha looked sheepishly at the sidewalk. “Nine o’clock, actually.” 

“What the  _ hell, _ Sasha,” Jon complained. 

“I was doing my chores,” she defended. 

“All  _ day?  _ Or did you just procrastinate and forget what time it was until your stomach started beating you with a stick about it?” 

“You are so unfair,” Sasha whined. 

“I am so going to start calling you and reminding you to  _ eat  _ in a timely manner, is what I am,” Jon said. 

“Stop bullying me,” complained Sasha. “I promise I’ll start remembering. I’ll set an alarm on my phone or something.” 

“I  _ will  _ hold you to that,” Jon huffed, but he smiled a little. 

“Anyway,” Sasha said, “how are you, Jon?” 

“Pretty good,” he decided. 

She hummed. “That’s good to hear. How is Elias?” 

“Oh, he’s just fine, when he’s not pestering me to alphabetize my damn bookshelf,” Jon grumbled. “He keeps saying, ‘Jon, you  _ really  _ should do something about how disorganized it is in here.’ Oh my god, leave me alone. If I want my bookshelf to be a disaster, that’s my business.” 

“You  _ don’t  _ want it to be a disaster, though. You just don’t want to actually confront the mess.” 

“Sasha, you’re not supposed to be on his side,” Jon complained. 

“I’m just saying, he’s right. You need to clean your room.” Sasha laughed when Jon shot her a dirty look, kicking a stray branch out of their path. “Maybe I’ll come over sometime and help you tidy up,” she offered gently. 

“Maybe,” Jon mumbled, embarrassed. 

“Hey,” Sasha said suddenly, “I just-- remembered something. Do you know, uh, what’s her name… I dunno-- Jamie, I think?” 

_ “Jamie?  _ No, can’t say as I do, I don’t know anyone with that name.”

Sasha frowned. “She’s got long black hair, kinda tall, wears a lot of red…” 

“Oh, I think you mean Jane,” said Jon. 

“Yeah, Jane, that’s her.” 

“I have English with her, yes. Why do you ask?” 

There was a pause. “Is she, uh…” Sasha made a vague motion with her free hand. “ _ Okay? _ ” 

“What do you mean by that?” Jon asked, feeling apprehensive. 

“I mean, like…” Sasha fumbled for words, “I dunno, in general? I-- I bumped into her in the halls the other day,” she said. 

“Yeah?” 

“I mean-- literally, bumped into her. I don’t think she-- well, she was… distracted, I think. She looked way out of it, and her eyes kept darting around like she was expecting something to happen, and she nearly  _ screamed  _ when she stumbled into me.” 

“That’s… peculiar,” Jon said, frowning. 

“Right? She was just… acting  _ really  _ weird. It kinda freaked me out a little,” Sasha admitted, laughing a bit. 

“I’m sorry, that is really odd,” Jon said sympathetically. “I don’t know anything about it, though-- she seemed more or less alright the last time I saw her…” he trailed off. “But…” 

The warning bell rang then, and Sasha frowned. 

“But what?” She asked anyway. They started to walk back towards the main entrance. 

“It’s just… now that you mention it,” Jon said, “I think she  _ has  _ been in kind of a poor mood lately. Well, a slightly poorer mood than she’s  _ usually  _ in.”

“Huh.” 

“I don’t know if they’re actually connected,” Jon said. “Maybe she was just having an off day?” 

Sasha was quiet for a bit. They had reached the part where their paths diverged, and she let go of his arm reluctantly. 

“Maybe,” she said at length. “It’s probably not important, I suppose. I’ll see you later.” 

* * *

“I mean,  _ look  _ at her. Don’t you see what I was talking about the other day?” 

They were sitting at lunch. Jane was standing against the wall by herself, hunched over and looking rather miserable. 

“I definitely see her, alright,” Jon agreed, chagrinned. 

“Who are we talking about?” Tim asked. 

“Jane Prentiss, that’s who,” Sasha told him vehemently, gesturing to her. “She’s been acting like-- like  _ that! _ And it’s  _ really  _ concerning!” 

“She looks like she’s… waiting for something,” Martin observed between bites of a sandwich. “Or watching for something.” 

By the far side of the room where she was standing, Jane rubbed at her shoulder nervously and cast a glance behind her out the window. 

“I see what you mean,” Tim said, frowning. “Man, she  _ really  _ just looks like she’s not having an okay time.” 

There was a pause before Martin cleared his throat and said, “um, maybe someone should go and… I don’t know, check on her?” 

Sasha sighed. “Oh, Martin, you’re probably right.” 

“Jon should go,” Tim said. 

_ “What!  _ Why me??” Jon protested. 

“No, Tim has a point. You’re the only one who actually has class with her,” Sasha pointed out. “So she knows you better than any of us.” 

“Why do  _ we  _ have to get involved?? Maybe she wants to be left alone!” Jon objected. He didn’t entirely know why he felt so apprehensive, but something in him resisted the idea of getting tangled up in whatever was going on. 

“I- If Jon doesn’t want to go, he shouldn’t have to,” Martin defended him. 

_ “Thank  _ you.” 

“Fine, but are we really just going to sit here and watch her over there, obviously freaking out?” Tim challenged. “I don’t know, that just kind of feels messed up.” 

“...That is fair,” Martin admitted. 

Jon felt a stab of guilt; it was obvious enough that everyone else was avoiding her eyes altogether, and despite the fact that Jane made him somewhat uneasy, he really had no excuse. Tim was right. He couldn’t just do  _ nothing. _

He sighed and stood up. “No, no, I’m going,” he said. 

“Do you want me to go with you?” Sasha offered. 

“No, it’s alright,” he said, and Sasha gave him a nervous smile. “I’ll probably be right back. Keep an eye on me.” 

“We will,” Martin promised. 

So Jon took a deep breath and started out in Jane’s direction. 

Halfway through, she turned to look toward him with a start and watched his approach intently. Anxiety curled in Jon’s stomach. He really didn’t know her all that well. He didn’t know if he had any business sticking his nose into things. He swallowed down his unease; he had no intention of backing down now, especially since she had already forecasted his intent. All he had to do was ask. All he  _ could  _ do was ask. The  _ least  _ he could do was try. 

“Jane,” he said finally when he was within speaking distance. “Are you-- are you alright?” 

She scratched nervously at her arms, which were covered in angry red streaks. 

“No, not really,” she said, offering him a weak smile. 

“What, uh… what happened?” Jon asked. “What’s wrong?” 

“What’s  _ wrong? _ ” Jane repeated. “This-- this school’s got a serious problem, but no one wants to  _ talk  _ about it. I went to the main office, but-- they didn’t even want to hear it. Those fools are just doing  _ nothing. _ ” 

Jon frowned, not knowing what she meant. He wondered briefly if he was meant to take that personally as he was the principal’s charge. But, no-- that didn’t match up with the expression she was giving him at all. 

She looked at him intensely, searching his face for any sign that he understood. He did not understand. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“The  _ bugs, _ Jon!” She exclaimed desperately. 

Jon paused. 

“They’re everywhere,” she continued. “They just keep showing up-- It’s like there’s more of them every day! Don’t tell me you don’t see them!”

He had no idea what she was  _ talking  _ about. 

“Jane,” he said carefully. “What bugs?” 

She stared at him, incredulous. 

“I have to go,” she said. 

“What bugs, Jane?” He repeated, his tone becoming urgent. 

“No, no, no,” she said nervously. “I don’t-- I can’t-- I don’t want to talk anymore. I have to go.” 

“Jane, please, explain,” Jon said frantically. 

“I’m going to class,” she mumbled shakily. “Please, just--” she said and started to shoulder by him. 

“Jane--” he started, stepping partway into her path and reaching a hand out anxiously.  _ Mistake, _ he realized as her eyes turned wild. 

“Out of the  _ way! _ ” She exclaimed. 

Jon hit the floor. The back of his skull thudded against the cold tile. His head fell to the side in time to watch her break into a run. 

_ “Fuck, _ ” he wheezed, bewildered and wincing. 

In a moment, his companions would be upon him, anxious and alarmed, and they would help him up and ask him what happened and offer to take him to the nurse. For now, though, Jon just stared after the rapidly disappearing figure of Jane, and wondered. 

* * *

The teacher had left them to work for the rest of the period and busied himself with his computer, tuning out the rising chatter of the class as students quickly grew bored and distracted. Jon tapped his pencil against his worksheet and watched Jane out of the corner of his eye. 

She was sitting at the next table over from him, sandwiched between a girl who kept coughing and sneezing and a boy who looked pale and exhausted and vaguely pained. Jon did not know if he forgave her yet for the killer headache he’d had to endure for the rest of school the other day on account of her knocking him to the ground, but she  _ had  _ told him sorry, even if she had been rather defensive about it. 

_ You really should have expected that to happen when you tried to stop me, _ she had said as to her case, arms crossed and looking down sullenly at the floor. He supposed she had a point. She’d definitely had something of a  _ caged animal  _ look about her at the time. 

Forgiven or not, though, his… concern over her situation had only increased. But he was loathe to confront her again for fear of a repeat experience, so all he could do now was watch. 

(And do his work, of course. He scribbled down another answer on his paper. He couldn’t let himself get so caught up in what was going on with Jane that he let it affect his grades. That would be less than ideal.) 

She was staring blankly at her page and drumming her fingers on the table. The girl beside her sneezed, and Jane flinched. 

“You look like hell,” said the tired boy to the sick girl. 

“Speak for yourself,” said the sick girl. The tired boy shrugged. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? Lately you’ve been looking like you’re about ready to keel over and die.” 

A single fly buzzed by Jon’s ear, and he jumped. 

“Oh,” said the tired boy, “I dunno. Lately I guess my stomach’s been hurting a lot?”

The sick girl hummed pensively. Jane gritted her teeth as she wrote. Jon felt a pang of sympathy for her, having to deal with those two chatterboxes. 

The sick girl coughed again, and Jane began to scratch at her arms, which were by now covered in scrapes and scabs. 

“You know, it’s probably because of your crummy diet that your stomach is always hurting,” the sick girl continued. 

“Oh my god, get off my back,” the tired boy complained, rubbing his eyes. Jon sighed in annoyance, forcing himself to tune out the ensuing argument they had about whether microwave dinners and takeaway food constituted an acceptable diet. 

He managed to get through a few more questions on his assignment, but those two clowns would not stop  _ talking. _ It wasn’t even as if they were the only ones who were-- most of their classmates were talking amongst themselves as they worked-- but it was so obvious they were making Jane uncomfortable, and Jon didn’t know why he cared so much, but he did, and he was getting a little angry at how inconsiderate they were. He was starting to think about saying something. He glanced over again. 

It looked like she was just doodling pentagrams on her paper now, having resigned herself to the fact that she was not going to be able to get anything done. She appeared more or less calm until the sick girl sniffled loudly beside her, and then she tensed up with barely-contained frustration and gripped her pencil so hard the point of it tore through the paper. 

“Dude, I’m just saying, the fact that you’re constantly eating junk food can’t possibly  _ help. _ ” 

“Yeah, but I’m just too tired to cook anything, alright?” 

“Well, there’s your problem, obviously,” the sick girl said. Then she started coughing and coughing, and the fly that had been buzzing around the room landed squarely in the middle of Jane’s worksheet, and Jane’s face screwed up with rage as she suddenly shoved all her books off her desk and stood up so fast her chair nearly fell over. 

“Oh my god, I can’t take it anymore! You have a parasite,  _ that’s  _ what’s wrong with you!” Jane accused the tired boy, who looked back at her wide-eyed. “And you,” she said, pointing at the sick girl, “ _ You  _ shouldn’t be here! You have the goddamn flu! You’re getting people sick!” 

“Is there a problem over there, Ms. Prentiss??” The teacher said crossly. 

_ “Yes! _ ” Jane nearly shrieked. The whole class was silent and openly staring by that point, Jon included, although it felt terrible to watch. “Yes, I  _ do  _ have a problem!  _ Tons  _ of them, actually! Not the  _ least  _ of which is the fact that this school has an infestation and apparently nobody cares except me!!” 

“What on  _ earth  _ are you referring to, Jane?” The teacher asked, bewildered and annoyed. 

“Stop acting like you don’t know about the bugs, just stop it! This is insane!” Jane wailed. “You see them and you just don’t care! Nobody does!” 

“What--” the teacher started. 

“Don’t you hear them scuttling!?” She demanded, shoulders shaking. “Don’t you hear them moving around under the floor?? Come on!! Can’t you hear them humming-- humming-- they won’t stop  _ humming!! _ ” 

She was hyperventilating by this point. 

“Jane,” the teacher said, “you need to go to the counselor’s office.” 

“No,  _ you  _ need to start listening to me! Why isn’t  _ anyone  _ doing something about--” 

“That’s enough!” The teacher cut her off. “You are  _ disrupting  _ my class, and if you don’t want to go to the counselor, then you can go to the principal’s office. Those are your choices.” 

Jane hesitated for a long moment, sniffling quietly. Her face was red and streaked with tears. 

“Fine,” she backed down eventually, voice shaking. “Fine. But if none of you are going to do anything about it, then I  _ will. _ I’ll figure this out myself if I have to.” 

Then she started hastily packing up her things, cramming books and papers into her backpack as she tried to hold back angry sobs, and Jon felt a terrible, gut-wrenching pang of sympathy for her despite everything. 

As she walked past his desk he stood up almost before he could think better of himself. 

“Jane,” he half-whispered, “I-- I’ll go with you, if you want.” 

For a moment she looked back at him with something vulnerable and raw like hope in her eyes, something that was obviously desperate for someone to look at her and  _ understand, _ but then her expression hardened. 

“No you won’t,” she whispered vehemently. “Sit down.” 

And so he did. Jon watched the door shut behind her as she left and knew, somehow, that this was not the end of it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go!! 
> 
> First of all I wanna say I’m aware that I’ve been doing school as a structure very American in this story, since as a HSAU it’s largely based off my own experiences (except for the supernatural parts, mostly). I hope it’s not too confusing or anything. 
> 
> But… second of all, I was really excited to introduce Jane and get some Sasha interactions in this chapter. Sasha has been a joy to write, and Jane specifically-- I had no idea what she was going to sound like up until writing this chapter, but nailing down her voice ended up being very interesting. I’m happy with how it came out, and I hope you all enjoyed this chapter as well.


	7. Chapter 7

_“Right?_ That’s what I was trying to tell them,” Tim was saying. “But-- oh, you know those two. Once they get an idea in their heads it’s _over,_ ” he laughed.

“Oh, of course,” Jon shook his head and smiled back at him. “How is he, by the way?” 

“Danny? Oh, he’s good!” Tim said brightly. “I’m gonna be heading over to the library in a moment, he wanted me to take one last look at the paper he’s turning in today before he prints it out. Actually, our parents told him if he gets good grades this semester, they’ll take him and Nicky to see that play they’ve been so hyped about.” 

“That must be exciting for them,” Jon said. 

“I’ve certainly never seen him so enthusiastic about turning in _homework_ before,” Tim agreed with a grin. “Well, at any rate, I just wanted to come check on you, y’know, bug you for a bit this morning before I went to go help him out. So, I’ll see you in first.” 

“Right, then, see you in a bit,” Jon said cheerfully as they parted ways. 

Tim was had always been a doting older brother, never hesitant to proclaim his pride for his sibling’s talents and achievements, to the point that Danny occasionally whined that Tim was embarrassing him. But he was so unfailingly supportive that it was hard to fault him for it. Jon had always found it rather sweet, and while he’d never had much reason to interact with Danny outside of going to Tim’s house over the years, he’d always thought him to be a nice kid. 

Lost in his thought as he was, Jon almost didn’t notice he was walking past her. Wouldn’t have noticed at all, in fact, if not for the fact that something beyond his understanding caught his eye and dragged it back. 

_Not human,_ the little voice of his mind said. 

He did not have much time to process this, because she noticed him in the same moment. 

She did not look… well. Her skin had a pale and sickly look about it, and her eyes were dull and haunted and distinctly _wrong,_ somehow. She had long sleeves today but Jon could see that beneath them her wrists and hands were dotted with little circular wounds, red and raw-looking. 

“J- Jane?” He said quietly, like it was a question he already knew the answer to. 

The thing that could not possibly be Jane anymore sucked in a wheezing breath and strode towards him with surprising purpose, quickly reaching him as he stared at her in shock and muted horror, momentarily frozen like a deer in headlights. She reached out as though to grab him by the shoulders, but the sense of alarm at being made to know she was no longer human had not left him, and reflexively he flinched away. 

He took a step backward, and something changed in her expression almost imperceptibly as she awkwardly folded her arms behind her back. 

“Jon,” she rasped. “Jon, listen to me. Please. You-- You’re not normal either, are you?” 

“What--?” 

“Tell me you hear it,” she pressed on, a note of desperation creeping into her tone. “Please tell me you hear it too, that-- that _song._ T- Tell me you can hear that song, too.” 

Jon tensed. He hesitated for a moment, but all he heard was the irregular buzz of cafeteria clamor, and he knew instinctively that what she was referring to was something far, far beyond his reach. 

He swallowed. “Wh… What do you mean?” He forced himself to ask. “What song, Jane?” 

She looked… utterly devastated, for a moment, like his words hit her with the force of a punch to the gut, like she had hinged the last of her decaying hopes upon his answer. She looked-- betrayed, almost, and then angry, and a little bit afraid. 

The entity that was not Jane anymore looked at him with a dangerous sharpness to her gaze. “Alright,” she said coldly. “Don’t interfere, then.” 

She spun on her heels and stormed away. 

* * *

He arrived at fourth period a little early that day and he glanced through the door as he passed by Elias’s office. He wasn’t always in at that time every day as his duties sometimes took him elsewhere, so Jon almost hadn’t been expecting to see him sitting there at his desk. 

Elias looked up from his work, as if sensing his presence. “Oh, good afternoon, Jon,” he said. “How is everything going?” 

“It’s, uh--” Jon faltered briefly as he stepped into the office, “it’s been… interesting, but I’m fine,” he said. He thought about whether or not to bring up what he saw that morning, but he hesitated. 

He had, of course, been overthinking it all day. On one hand Jon felt that perhaps he had a duty to at least try to raise attention to it, and on the other he had no idea what, if anything, Elias could even _do._ He fidgeted. He was already so weary of stressing out about the turmoil that was Jane Prentiss. 

He decided he could steal a moment of worrying about something else, and in this particular moment he decided that something was going to be Elias. 

“How are you?” Jon asked. “Everything alright? You look a little more tired than usual.” 

Elias sighed. “Oh-- I’m just as busy as ever, I suppose,” he decided. “Well… perhaps a little moreso. I think I’m going to be home a little later than normal, as a matter of fact. Busier schedule today than I had originally anticipated,” he said apologetically. “Other than that, I’m just fine, thank you.” 

“If you say so,” Jon said, relaxing a little. “Actually, before I forget… uh, on second thought, have you got a moment? I don’t want to bother you too much, it’s not important or anything.” 

“No, you’re quite alright,” Elias assured him, setting his pen down. “Go ahead.” 

“Right, then, I’ll try to keep it short,” Jon said. “Well, it’s just-- the light on my desk burned out this morning, and I couldn’t for the life of me seem to find where we put the spare bulbs before I had to catch the bus. Do you happen to know where I could find them off the top of your head?” 

Elias considered. “...Check the linen closet when you get home, up on the very top shelf. I’ll have to get some more soon, but there will be one left.” 

“Why are they-- okay.” 

One of these days they were really going to have to start agreeing on where to keep things and actually stick to it. That said, at least _someone_ in their house always knew where everything was. 

“If that’s all, then I should probably get back to it,” Elias said, folding his hands. “By the way, Mr. Fairchild mentioned wanting to see you? I believe he’s got a project he could use an extra set of hands on today.” 

“Right, sure thing,” Jon said. 

Mr. Fairchild was the vice principal. He was a very eccentric man, but he had a fun sense of humor and was always nice to him, so Jon rather liked him. Just then, though, he remembered his earlier dilemma, and frowned. 

His nice little distraction was over. Now or never, he supposed. Better speak up. 

“Er… one more thing, before I go,” Jon said, hesitating in the doorway. “Do you, uh… Did you hear about-- about Jane?” 

“We have a number of Janes in attendance here,” Elias said politely. 

“Sorry-- Jane Prentiss,” he clarified, and hoped that would be enough. 

“Oh, that.” Elias’s expression became grim. He glanced down at the pages on his desk. “Yes, I’ve been… made aware of her situation. As you can imagine, no one else can confirm the supposed existence of whatever bugs she claims to be seeing everywhere, and there’s not much we can do to follow up on such a thing. Honestly, Jon, I would not suggest you get involved.” 

“I… alright,” Jon said uneasily. It was probably a little too late for that. 

“That said, you will undoubtedly find your own way out of it,” Elias continued off-handedly. Then he frowned down at his papers, a momentary pause as both of them played the unusual remark back in their heads. 

Before either of them could say anything else, though, the phone on Elias’s desk began to ring. 

“If you’ll excuse me,” Elias said, and Jon had no choice but to bid him a quick farewell and shut the door behind him as he left. 

That didn’t bode particularly well. 

But he had no time to figure out what he had meant by that, he thought as he set off in the direction of Mr. Fairchild’s office. Whatever this was, Jon was sure his opportunity to not get involved had already passed him by. 

* * *

The final bell rang for the day and Jon watched as Jane started to push in the opposite direction from the crowd of students heading to the parking lot and the busses. 

Maybe she had a good reason to do so, Jon tried to reason with himself, but his eyes lingered on her nonetheless. Maybe. Maybe it was just paranoia talking, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that anymore. _Don’t interfere,_ she had said. Those were not the words of a student who had simply forgotten a textbook in another classroom. He followed her. 

Besides, he reminded himself: that could not truly be Jane anymore, not if his ability was to be believed, which it always, always was. He couldn’t afford to assume the best of her. This could only be trouble. This could only be the beginning of a problem if he didn’t do something to stop it.

Where was she _going?_

She-- she was making her way to the school’s lower level, so it seemed. Her shoulders were hunched nervously and her steps were quick, or as quick as she could manage as she fought against the tide of the halls. What could she possibly want down there? As far as he was aware, she didn’t even have any classes down there; the lower level was mostly band and orchestra, theater and choir, and some art classes. 

The gears in Jon’s brain were turning quick but perhaps not quick enough. Jane had mentioned-- some sort of music, he recalled. She had said to him, _tell me you hear that song._ He’d had no idea what she could have possibly been referring to, but it obviously meant something to her. If it was music she was looking for-- he supposed this made sense, or so he thought at first as he descended the steps, shoulders brushing against other students as he hurried to keep her in his line of sight. 

But then-- no. It couldn’t possibly be that. First of all, he had no idea what she could have hoped to accomplish by going to the music classrooms, as they were not in session at all during the latter half of the day. Their doors would be locked, and their teachers would not be present. Second of all, as they pulled out of the bulk of the crowd and into the substantially emptier halls of the lower level, she marched straight past those rooms without pause, picking up the pace. Jon frowned. 

He hoped quietly to himself that at this point that she would not cast a glance over her shoulder and see him following behind her, or he would have some difficult explaining to do. But then, so would she. She had no good reason to be down here. She was definitely up to no good. What could she possibly be looking for? Quickly they passed all of the classroom doors but still she continued down the hall, where there was… oh. 

A door, Jon realized. He’d never had cause to pay attention to it before. As far as he knew, it was an old storage room that was seldom used. But as he watched, sure enough, she reached for the handle. _Wouldn’t it be locked?_ Jon thought to himself, but then he caught sight of a dull metal glint as Jane produced an apparently stolen key from her sleeve and quickly let herself in. 

That-- that couldn’t be good. 

He peered through the dark window on the door as he approached. He saw an indistinct shape that he assumed had to be Jane moving around towards the back of the room, but then it ducked down and disappeared. He waited, nearly holding his breath, but then everything was still, and it became increasingly apparent that she was not coming back out. 

Then it was just Jon and the door in the growing quiet of the lower level halls. 

Well, he supposed as he stared at the handle, it seemed the rest was in his hands. He was, more likely than not, the only person who knew that Jane was not what she appeared to be. He was the only one who knew that whatever she was planning, she didn’t want anyone to get in her way. It was just Jon now, Jon and his weird power that always got him into trouble, hesitating with a hand on the doorknob. He couldn’t just ignore this. He couldn’t just watch and do nothing. He steeled himself to open it, and-- 

“Jon?” A voice called from behind him, and for a moment he seized up. 

_“Christ,_ Sasha, you’ve got to stop doing that!” Jon exclaimed, although he felt nearly shaky with relief upon realizing that it was only her. “I nearly jumped out of my own skin!” 

“Relax, it’s not like I’m going to _tell_ on you or something,” she said jokingly, placing a hand lightly on his back as she came to stand beside him. “Listen, I… I saw everything.” 

“Y- You did??” 

“I’ve got art class sixth period, remember?” She reminded him a little teasingly, keeping her voice down. “I was a little late putting my stuff away today. I saw you go by my door,” she said. “I was… confused, but then I stepped out into the hall and saw Jane, and I put two and two together.” 

Jon didn’t know what to say, so she continued. “It’s time, isn’t it?” She said. 

He took a deep breath. It had been a long time since he’d heard those words, under these circumstances. 

“Yes,” he said at length. “Yes, I think it is.” 

Sasha grinned slowly at that. “And you were just going to go alone, weren’t you? No, no, no. We can’t have _that_.” 

“No, I-- I suppose you’re right,” Jon said, returning her smile. 

_“Really,_ now, you’ve found yourself some spooky problem that needs to be solved and you weren’t even going to call on us? I’m _hurt,_ Jon,” Sasha said playfully. “We’re a team, you know. Always been. You can’t just go charging into danger without us.”

“Right, you’re right, you’re right,” he laughed a little despite himself, feeling almost weak with relief. It had been a long time. With good reason, but nonetheless-- it felt good to know that Jon wasn’t alone at the mercy of his weird power and the supernatural. 

“I’ll text Tim,” said Sasha, “you text Martin. We’ll figure this out, Jon,” she promised, and in that moment he found that he completely believed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and sorry about the late update! Some life stuff came up, but I anticipate the next chapter will be up at the usual time next weekend. 
> 
> This chapter was a little bit harder to do than usual, but eventually I realized I had to stop staring at it and just throw it out there, so I hope you enjoyed it. Until next week (and I promise it WILL be next week this time)!


	8. Chapter 8

“So this is the situation as I understand it,” Jon began. 

The four of them were standing in the dark and cluttered space of the storeroom, where in the very back, they had discovered an irregular panel of flooring. 

“You all are aware that Jane Prentiss has recently begun to exhibit some… increasingly concerning behavior over the preceding weeks. For a while now she’s been acting much more jumpy and paranoid than usual, and recently she began to talk of a supposed infestation that apparently no one could see but herself.” 

Martin was still out of breath after hurrying from the bus parking lot back down to the lower level. Tim was standing stiffly at Sasha’s side, glancing around the room out of the corners of his eyes as if he was trying to take in the details of the dim room without taking his eyes off of Jon’s face. Sasha was trying to keep a tiny smile off her face that was half nervousness and half anticipation. 

“Last week, Jane had something of a breakdown in English class wherein she confronted the class and teacher about their perceived lack of action on the matter, and announced her intention to investigate on her own,” Jon said, his tone beginning to slip into a sort of academic certainty. 

Laying it all out like this-- like these were just pieces of a puzzle they were going to solve… 

“When next I met with her, she was visibly affected by whatever it was she had encountered during her endeavors. Notably, she seemed to be trying to conceal a number of injuries to her hands and arms, which I observed to be small and circular in shape; given the context of her claims I suspect they may indeed have been some form of insect bites, but it’s too soon for me to be sure.”

…It gave him a certain confidence, it made him feel more in control. 

“Whatever happened to her in the interim, whatever she met with-- I suspect it changed her in some way. She approached me to tell me in no uncertain terms _not to interfere,_ so… as you can imagine, I’m not optimistic as to what that means regarding her intentions.” 

He was in his element now. They all were. He could feel it. 

“I followed her down to the lower level in time to watch her break into this storeroom, whereafter she promptly disappeared, presumably into…” Jon reached down, gripped the edge of the irregular panel of floor, and pulled it open. 

It was a trapdoor, with steps leading down beneath it into god knows where. 

“Into this passage,” Jon finished. 

“Oh, what the hell??” Tim said. 

“Hold on-- hold on-- sorry, is that a _trapdoor?_ ” Martin said as the other three crowded around to peer down into it. “Why on _earth_ is there just a-- a straight up _secret passage_ in the lower level of our school? What kind of weird school just _has_ this??” 

“Ours, apparently?” Sasha mumbled as she stared into it. 

“Really, why is this here? What purpose could you possibly have for-- for whatever _that_ is in a place like this??” Martin said, bewildered. 

“Don’t know,” Jon shrugged. “I mean, I guess this building-- or parts of it-- have supposedly been around for two hundred years or something, right? Could very well have been part of the original structure. Who knows.” 

There was a beat of silence. 

“So… let me just try to get this straight, real quick,” Tim started. 

“Be my guest,” Jon said. 

“Jane started acting like a weirdo at lunch last week, the four of us decided someone had to go talk to her to make sure she wasn’t, like, in _danger_ or something, and then she knocked you on your ass in the middle of the cafeteria for no goddamn reason. Then you were, what-- minding your own business in class and she started screaming about bugs or whatever?” 

“Something like that,” Jon grimaced. 

“Okay,” Tim said, “and then she completely lost her marbles, gave you an ominous one-liner about not interfering with her evil bug plans, and then busted into this weird storage room to disappear into this-- this freaky trapdoor no one apparently knew about except her?” 

“I wouldn’t use literally any of those words, I think, but yeah, that just about sums it up,” Jon confirmed. 

“Alright, great,” Tim sighed. “...And god knows what the hell she’s _doing_ down there, of course. Christ.” 

“Yes, my thoughts exactly,” Jon agreed. He glanced around, meeting his friends’ eyes in the gloom and scanning their faces briefly. “So… now you know just about everything I do. I-- I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I don’t believe this is something we can just safely ignore. To tell you the truth, when I saw what Jane was doing I had intended to go investigate myself, until Sasha reminded me to use my head for once,” he said and laughed a little. Sasha smiled faintly in reply. 

“Er, speaking of which, Sasha…” Jon continued, “you’ve been quiet so far. Everything alright?” 

She hesitated for another moment. “Just-- tell me one more thing,” Sasha said, her eyes fixed on the stone steps beneath the trapdoor. 

“It’s just that I’ve started to think… If we… If we’re going after her… When we find Jane down there--” she paused for a moment, and tried again. “I think I know the answer already, but just tell me-- is this a rescue mission, or are we going to have to fight? I mean, is there _any_ possibility that maybe we can help her, or reason with her, or _something?_ ” 

Jon let her question sink in for a moment. 

_Not human,_ the little whisper in the back of his head had said. _Don’t interfere, then,_ the thing that was probably not even Jane anymore had said. Still he hesitated. 

“I… I don’t know,” he fumbled reluctantly. “I mean, I-- I don’t really know what to expect. As far as we know, she could be up to absolutely anything--” 

“ _Jon…_ ” 

“No,” he admitted quickly, begrudgingly. “No, I… I don’t think so.” 

Sasha took a deep breath. “Right. Right, then,” she said, grimly resolute. “Nowhere to go but forward, I suppose.” 

“Of course, it’s possible I could be wrong…” Jon started, rather wanting to believe it himself. 

Martin shuffled his feet. “But you so rarely are about these sorts of things, are you?” He said gently. 

“We haven’t exactly known your weird spooky-senses to lead us astray yet,” Tim agreed. “So…” 

“So lead the way, Jon,” Sasha finished, squaring her shoulders. 

Jon started to smile. “I _do_ so wish you wouldn’t call it that, though, Tim.” 

“What, like you’ve got a better thing for us to call it?” 

“I just don’t think _spooky_ is a very dignified word,” Jon grumbled, unable to wipe the widening grin off of his face. “Yet you’re all so stubbornly attached to it.” 

“This again?” Martin chided him. Tim laughed. 

Jon shook his head at his friends. There was really no one he would rather have at his side than these three. 

“Right, then, I suppose we’re going in,” Jon started. “It’s-- well, it’s probably going to be dark down there, so I would suggest getting out your phones now, unless any of you happen to have an actual torch on you. And I-- I don’t have the faintest clue as to what we’re going to run into down these steps, so keep your guard up. And--” 

Sasha pushed his shoulder lightly. “We know, Jon,” she said teasingly. “This isn’t our first rodeo, you know.” 

“R- Right, I…” Jon looked down into the staircase beneath the trapdoor again. “I know.” 

Still he hesitated another moment. “I’ve got, uh, just one more thing to ask. I won’t ask if any of you want to back down now, because I know damn well you won’t, but…” He paused, trailing off for a moment. 

“Are you-- scared?” Jon asked, not meeting any of their eyes. 

There was a beat of silence. Then Martin said, “well, yeah, obviously.” 

“We _do_ have common sense,” Tim said. 

“I know I’m more than a little nervous myself,” Sasha agreed. 

Jon gave them a shaky smile. “Perfect,” he said. 

“What-- What do you mean by that?” Martin asked. 

“It’s just that I’d hate to think I was the only coward in the lot of us,” Jon said, and took the first step down into the passageway below. “Let’s go.” 

* * *

Beneath that trapdoor, what they found was more than a simple hidden passageway or series of rooms, or anything else that could be more-or-less easily explained. It was mazelike and sprawling, and it was very, very dark. The stale, murky blackness of it enveloped them readily, palpably, a sudden, quiet absence folding around them as they descended. 

Jon supposed that when they had first resolved to venture down, the idea was that Jane could not possibly be far, and they would simply trace her route, find her and confront her for whatever that entailed. That quickly became a much less simple matter than originally anticipated, but then, deep down he supposed they had known it could not possibly be something simple and straightforward. Corridors of gray stone stretched and twisted in all directions. The possibility that they were now in far over their heads became apparent, but as he glanced at the faces of his friends, Jon could still see that same somber determination in their eyes. 

They had faced worse than this yet, and Jon supposed he even had the scars to prove it. He took a deep breath and banished the uncertainty from his lungs. 

In the end they’d simply had to choose a direction and go, trying to keep to as straight a path as possible to avoid getting lost. Jon had been beginning to grow uncertain about whether they were going the right way or not when he spied a metal glint on the stone floor in the diffuse light of his phone’s torch. 

It was a key, he realized as he picked it up, taking it into his hands and feeling the cold bite of it against his skin. 

“Jon?” Martin said as he noticed him hesitating. “What’s-- what is that?” 

Sasha and Tim looked back at him. Jon held it up and said, “this is the key Jane used to get into the storage room. She must have dropped it.” 

“So she definitely came this way,” Sasha said. 

“Certainly so. We’re on her track now.” 

“Come on, then,” said Tim. “We have to keep moving.” 

A dull anxiety began to twist in Jon’s stomach over time as they pressed on, as the growing possibility that around every corner, beyond every shadow there could be something unseen lurking began to weigh on him. 

But then: what was it exactly he was afraid of? 

Was it the tunnels themselves? Was it the dark? Was it the way their footsteps echoed in the otherwise-deafening silence? Was it the meandering, unsteady paths that sloped up and down and around, the irregular shapes of the corridors, the uncertainty of it all, the idea that these unfamiliar walls might swallow both the four of them and Jane up without a trace? That maybe no one would ever know what happened to them all if it did? 

Was it Jane herself he was afraid of, or was it that he feared the same thing she did? Not necessarily the unseen specter of something many-legged and ever-present, ever-hidden, but that unheard siren song of calling, calling, reaching through their skin into an itch so bone-deep it flayed them to their raw, rotting cores, and-- no. No. Jon quickly put a stop to that train of thought. He was beginning to feel sick. 

He felt another jabbing pang of something between sympathy and fear and grief for Jane. 

Maybe that was the thing that bothered him so much, he thought solemnly. His whole life he’d been seeing them, the monsters, the inhuman. But Jane was-- he had certainly seen her before, and this was not how it was supposed to work, this was not how it was supposed to _be._ He _knew_ her before, albeit not well, perhaps not well enough, but… maybe that was the part that sat so ill with him. Because his whole life he had been encountering them, seeing them _appear,_ but never had he seen them be _made,_ and either the person he met this morning had never been Jane at all-- something perhaps that wore her visage in her stead-- or it was, and she had lost something terrible. Found an answer and lost a fight, lost a piece of her, whether wrenched by force from bloody unwilling fingers or voluntarily surrendered, offered up, lain down at the feet of whatever had called to her so sweetly and terribly… 

He didn’t know. There it was, he supposed. That was what he was afraid of. 

* * *

There was a faint sound from up ahead of them, a vague clattering noise that could have been footsteps or something else, from beyond a place where the passageway forked prominently into two new paths. It was unclear which branch the noise had come from, or if the sound had actually meant anything at all. They hesitated for a moment. 

“I think we need to turn back,” Martin said. 

There was a momentary pause. Then Tim said, “what, and just-- give up now? When we’ve come so far, just- just turn around and pretend this never happened??” 

“No, it’s just that I don’t think we’re properly equipped to really go any further,” Martin said. 

“But you _heard_ that, right?” Tim pressed, agitated. “Don’t you think we must be getting close? That could have been her! We have to keep going!” 

“I’m starting to get the feeling that she doesn’t want to be found, is all,” Martin explained, looking serious, “and we’re not really in a position to play this sort of game right now. We don’t know where we are, all we’ve got is the stuff in our backpacks and the light from our phones’ torches to go by, and I don’t know about you all, but my battery is starting to get a little too low for comfort.” 

“It’s, uh… not impossible that this could be some sort of… trap,” Sasha agreed. “If either Jane or… or whatever _thing_ she found down here has any sort of ill intent, then it could be that they’re toying with us. Y’know, leading us further and further in until we get reckless or our energy runs out, waiting for the right time to strike, or something. I’m not saying that’s the case, but…” 

“...Well, when you say it like that…” Tim mumbled in dismay. 

“I mean… it’s not like these tunnels are _going_ anywhere,” Martin rationalized. “But it doesn’t do anyone any good if we get ourselves hurt down here by trying to press on.” 

“Alright, yeah, I think you’re right,” Tim relented. 

“Jon? You okay?” Martin asked suddenly. “You’ve been lost in thought over there for a while now.” 

“I’m-- I’m fine,” Jon said quickly. “I, uh, I agree, I think we should regroup and come back another day when we’re more prepared.” He couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed, but that was how it was. 

“Now…” Sasha started, turning around. “How long have we been down here, exactly?” 

Jon checked his phone. “It’s nearly quarter to four already.” 

“Yikes,” She mumbled under her breath, tired. “Rest in peace to the homework I probably won’t be doing.” Jon offered her an apologetic smile, which she returned. 

“None of you have anywhere you need to _be_ in a hurry, I hope?” Sasha continued as they began to try to retrace their steps. 

Tim shook his head. Martin mumbled noncommittally, seeming a bit apprehensive. 

“Well-- I suppose I _do_ need to be home before Elias is, so I suppose I should hope it won’t take us _too_ long to make our way back,” Jon said. It was probably a good thing that he was apparently extra busy today, anyway. “By the way, Tim, I assume you’ll be the one to drive us all home?” 

“Bold of you to volunteer my services for that,” Tim replied. 

“Sure, sure, but you’re the only one among us who drives,” Jon said a little teasingly, “and as you can imagine, we no longer have the option of taking the school busses home. So, unless you’d have the rest of us march on up to Elias’s office when we get back and ask him for a ride…?” 

“God, no,” Tim said quickly, looking mortified. 

“Because I’m just sure that would go over so very well,” Jon said, smiling innocently. 

“Alright, alright,” Tim grumbled good-naturedly. “No, you got me. I was kidding anyway. _God,_ he would be mad as shit if he found out what we were doing, huh.” 

Jon hummed in agreement. “Not sure that _mad_ is quite the word, but I can’t say I imagine he’d be pleased with us, no,” he said. 

They continued in relative quiet for a while. They’d gotten probably ten or fifteen minutes into their trek back before they’d accidentally taken a wrong turn and had to loop back, which was already worrying. No one said much about it, at first, but it was there under the surface: a definite sense of anxiety. They’d come a long way. It was hard to say how far away they were from the entrance anymore. 

“Do you think Elias, uh… knows about this place?” Tim asked eventually. “Like is he aware that the school is apparently situated above a bunch of weird spooky tunnels, or…” 

Jon shook his head. “I don’t think so. I sort of doubt anyone except Jane and now the four of us have even been here in ages, and I have no idea how _she_ even knew about it,” he said. “I mean… if he did know, he probably would have tried to stop me from traipsing around down here, so no, I doubt it.” 

Not that he reasonably _could_ have known what the four of them were going to do, of course. But that did not always seem to stop him. If there was one thing Jon knew for sure, however, it was that Elias would absolutely have tried to intervene if he’d really understood the full scope of what they were trying to do, and so consequently he had to assume that was not the case. 

“Er, haven’t we been this way already?” Martin spoke up. 

Sasha, who had taken the lead at this point, hesitated. “What-- what do you mean? I’m sure we haven’t, we’ve been going…” 

“But, look-- there’s that section of the wall that’s all mangled up, I thought we passed that,” Martin said. 

There was a tense moment of quiet as the four of them exchanged glances. 

“I think he’s right, Sasha,” Jon said apprehensively. “...Yep, look there.” He pointed to the spot where Tim had so eloquently scribbled _‘Tim was here’_ the last time they’d passed. 

“Alright, great,” she said in dismay. “Yeah, I see it now. I’m sorry, this place is utterly surreal. I’m starting to get confused,” she admitted. 

“We’ll find our way back out,” Tim reassured her gently. 

Jon paused. Something about what Tim said gave him a vague sense of déjà vu. 

“But which way _is_ that anymore?” Sasha insisted uncertainly. “I-- I don’t know as well as I thought I did. This place… it’s not even that it all looks the _same,_ it’s just that it’s so irregular. For all we know, any of these paths could lead back, but they could also lead anywhere else. Trying to tell which is the right one-- it’s just-- I don’t know,” she said. “I’m usually better at this…” 

_Honestly, Jon, I would not suggest you get involved,_ came the memory of Elias’s voice in Jon’s head. _That said, you will undoubtedly find your own way out of it._

“Ah,” Jon sighed aloud. So that was it. “I, er… I think I have an idea,” he said hesitantly, “or a-- a feeling, at least.” 

Calling it a _feeling_ may have been generous. It was more like a vague prickling in the back of his mind, nearly imperceptible, and yet… 

“Alright,” said Sasha. “If a feeling is the best we’ve got, so be it, I suppose. I trust your judgement.” 

Jon fidgeted nervously. “Then I can only hope I’m not wrong,” he said. 

But he wasn’t wrong. It still took longer than was ideal, cutting too close for comfort on time by the end, but they made it out alive and unharmed. 

He supposed that was victory enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sure the Archives gang traipsing around in these spooky hell tunnels will be totally fine. Don’t worry about it.


	9. Chapter 9

During the following days Jane did not return to school. To Jon, and to his friends who saw and who knew and who had been trying unsuccessfully to track her down, that was not surprising in the slightest. A day or two of missing class could be easily overlooked, Jon supposed. But as the week drew on and no one appeared to notice her disappearance whatsoever, he found himself feeling unusually disquieted by the matter. 

So he had started to ask around about her. Just-- just to reassure himself that he and his friends weren’t the only ones who noticed and who cared, that was it. Just to prove that her absence mattered to anyone at all who wasn’t himself. 

If anything, what he found in response to his questioning only left him even more uneasy. 

“Have you heard from Jane recently?” He had at one point asked a group of girls he knew she occasionally sat with at lunch, trying to provoke the realization of her disappearance. He wasn’t entirely sure what he had been  _ expecting  _ to get in response, but a set of blank stares and a long pause had certainly not been it. 

They’d just shaken their heads and mumbled that they didn’t know who he was talking about. He had tried in vain to clarify, but they only seemed to become more confused, until Jon had been forced to give up. 

So it went. It would have been one thing if it was just a few people who had apparently forgotten her, but it wasn’t. To anyone he asked, the results remained largely the same: when questioned, most people would become completely still for a moment, pausing expressionlessly, and then continue whatever they were doing as if he had said nothing at all. 

Trying to push the matter usually earned him a muddled, confused look, as if they were trying to puzzle out something he’d said in a different language or something. It was either that or they would mishear him, or misunderstand him, or outright ignore him altogether. It was like they were completely unable to process his questions, words slipping off of them ineffectually, uncomprehendingly. 

That was something he found difficult to accept, the idea that whatever  _ thing  _ had caused Jane’s breakdown and drawn her into the tunnels could just-- erase her from the collective minds of the people who knew her. Jon started to have a creeping suspicion that if he had not seen her disappearance with his own eyes, there was a very real possibility he too would not have been able to notice. 

His life would have simply continued, and he would have been none the wiser, and the girl who spoke with such terror of a song that no one else could hear would have disappeared from the world without a trace. That did not sit right with him. 

Jon did not ask Elias about the disappearance of Jane. The idea that Elias, too, might be affected by whatever spell the rest were under unnerved him in a very different way. If Jon were to mention it to him and if he were to respond with the same blank-faced confusion as the others-- Jon didn’t even know how he would  _ react  _ to that. That would be too much for him to bear. 

No, he decided. Selfish as it may have been, he just couldn’t bring himself to ask. He didn’t want to know. 

* * *

It took until the following Monday for something to change. 

He had nearly given up hope of anyone understanding by that point, but it had become something of a reflex. This time he was in English class, at the very end, and everyone had been packing away their things in preparation to head to their next class. 

“Have you noticed Jane Prentiss hasn’t been here recently?” Jon flatly asked the boy who used to sit next to her, the one she had suddenly accused of having a parasite during her breakdown. 

Just like the others, the boy had paused, expression becoming vague for a long moment, but then at length he frowned and said, “Now that you mention it, yeah. That is very odd.” 

Jon was so shocked that it took him a moment to process the boy’s reply. 

“You-- you  _ have  _ noticed, then?” 

“To be honest, uh, I didn’t even think of it until you brought it up,” the boy said, appearing contemplative. “But… the last time she was here, to my knowledge… she was acting really strange, wasn’t she-- said something about going to investigate some bugs or whatever? You’d think, if she stopped turning up after saying something like that, it would be more memorable… but…” he shook his head. There it was again, that confused look, like he was trying to force his mind to process something it really didn’t want to. 

“Er, at any rate, I don’t think we’ve properly spoken much before,” said the boy. “I can’t say as I remember your name?” 

“Oh-- um-- I’m Jon, uh, Jonathan Sims.” 

The other boy shrugged a little at his awkward demeanor but stuck his hand out regardless, and Jon somewhat reluctantly shook it. “Timothy Hodge,” said the boy. “So, then… Do you know her? Any idea where she’s been?” 

“Uh-- no, not really,” Jon half-lied. “It’s just… after she had that breakdown in class and stopped showing up, everyone else I’ve talked to has been really weird about it. A lot of people are suddenly acting like they don’t even know her at all, or-- or something. So I’ve been asking about her.” 

“Huh,” said Timothy. There was an unplaceable expression on his face. “That’s… That’s not right, is it?” 

The bell finally rang, and the other boy slung his backpack over his shoulder as he prepared to leave. “I guess I’ll keep an ear out for anything about her,” he said to Jon, his face becoming troubled. “maybe try to poke around a little bit, myself. If I… If I figure out what happened to her, I’ll be sure to let you know, okay?” 

“Oh, I-- okay, thank you,” Jon said. Then the boy turned and began to walk away. A girl-- the other person who Jane had accused of being ill before, Jon realized-- was waiting for Timothy by the door, and he slipped his hand into hers as they left. His girlfriend, Jon supposed. He tried briefly to recall her name. It might have been Harriet. Jon could faintly hear the boy begin to ask her the same questions Jon had asked as the pair departed. 

That was the last he ever saw of either of them. 

The next day, they did not show up for class, and the teacher did not call their names for attendance, and no one reacted to the disappearance at all. 

Jon stopped asking about her after that. 

* * *

They hadn’t found her yet but they were getting close, they were learning quick. With every repeat excursion down into the tunnels beneath the schools they were getting better at navigating them bit by bit. 

They went prepared now. They brought torches, they brought backup torches, they brought spare batteries. They made arrangements to cover their absences if it took them more time than anticipated to reemerge. As far as their parents were aware, the four of them were at Sasha’s house, except for Sasha herself who was supposedly studying at the library, which, as far as they were concerned, was plenty believable if it took them longer than usual to make their way out. It sometimes did, still, but they were getting better at it. The time constraints were just something they would have to learn to work around. 

Fortunately, they did have the benefit of having parents with fairly relaxed standards for that sort of thing. Tim’s generally trusted him to be responsible enough to make good decisions so long as he maintained decent grades while Sasha’s understood that she was often busy trying to stay on top of her workload already, and so would not bat an eye at a couple of extended trips to the library now and again. (As for Martin-- no one asked him and he did not volunteer how he was sorting this out. But he assured them it was fine and so no one pushed.) 

Presently they still had plenty of time until they would have to turn back, and were trying to make the most of it. That was possibly the single hardest part: no one liked having to go back with little to show for their efforts. 

How were they supposed to just call it a day and carry on with their lives like this? How were they supposed to try in vain to focus on school every day when they knew there was something lurking beneath them, something that depended on them  _ not interfering? _

They all felt the same sense of disquiet, that crawling paranoia. They had no choice but to make this their top priority. None of them would be able to feel at ease until this was over. 

Today it was Tim who took the lead. Martin followed just behind him, and at the moment Jon and Sasha were bringing up the rear. They came across yet another door set into the gray stone walls of the tunnels and Tim paused to try the handle. It didn’t budge. A lot of them didn’t. In fact, some of the ones that did only opened to reveal the flat wall behind it. Every once in a while they would open into a new passage or chamber of some sort, but they had long since stopped finding it bizarre when they didn’t. 

“Everything okay?” Sasha asked Jon in a hushed voice. He jumped slightly at the sound of her voice and she winced a little in sympathy. “I mean, aside from the obvious,” she added. 

“I’m… I’m fine, why?” 

“You just had this sort of… perplexed look on your face, is all.” 

They were trailing behind the others a bit, and Martin cast a glance back to check on them briefly before turning his attention back to the tunnels in front of them. 

“I guess I was just…” Jon started, and then hesitated. “Do you, uh… do you remember when we first met?” 

“Of course I do.” 

Jon hummed apprehensively. “What made you decide to talk to me in the first place?” 

“Why… do you ask?” Sasha responded. 

“I was just-- thinking about some things,” Jon said. “The beginning of it, I suppose.” 

“I assume you don’t just mean the beginning of  _ this,” _ Sasha gestured around, indicating their current predicament. Jon shook his head. 

“Not just this, no. I mean the-- the very start of it, the four of us investigating things like this. When we all met.” He paused again, eyes fixed on the path ahead. “It’s just… I know I sure as hell didn’t make it easy for you,” Jon said, laughing a little, almost apologetically. “So… what was it that made you approach me at all, in the first place?”

Sasha considered. “...That was a long time ago, now,” she said, “so it’s hard to say exactly what was going through my head at the time.” 

She thought of Jon as he was then, thought back to the days of middle school and visiting the public library as often as she could get away with, thought of the quiet, bitter Jon who was eternally stuck to his guardian’s side. She thought of the way he never looked comfortable, like he was never sure what to do with himself or where to go. 

He looked a lot like she did, in that. There had been that sort of reservedness about him that came with the territory of arriving at a new and tumultuous period of life and not having any meaningful connection to it, which was something that had resonated with her in a way. 

“I guess it was just that you looked rather like you needed a friend,” said Sasha quietly. 

Jon considered her answer for a moment. “I suppose you were right,” he said finally. “I was… that was a weird time, for me.” 

“I can only imagine it was,” she said sympathetically. Then, jokingly she added, “the fact that the four of us proceeded to start, you know, fighting monsters and whatnot probably didn’t make it any less weird.” 

“No, I can’t say that it did,” Jon agreed, a mixture of amusement and sentimentality in his voice. “But in a way, I really am grateful for it. Despite everything.” 

Sasha hummed understandingly, and they lapsed into quiet as they continued on their way.

* * *

But-- there was something about the topic that continued to nag at Jon, tugging at the threads of his attention and drawing him back in.

_ The beginning of it,  _ he’d called it. Indeed, there was something that felt important about it, especially now, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. 

Theirs was a tale that did have a relatively clear beginning and ending-- or it’d had one, until they’d reopened it by pursuing the disappearance of Jane Prentiss. 

He’d first met Sasha in sixth grade. That was right after Jon had encountered  _ A Guest for Mr. Spider. _ The book had been reduced to ash, but still it left its mark on both himself and Elias, a lingering paranoia that had weighed on them both heavily. 

Especially in those first couple of months Elias had been very, very wary, and very reluctant to let Jon out of his sight. But Jon’s voracious appetite for books had never been discouraged in and of itself, only redirected, and so to the library they went. Every Tuesday and Friday after school, like clockwork, until eventually it simply became a routine fact of life. 

It was perhaps one of the  _ only  _ facts of life that had felt routine at the time, to Jon, but not because things were particularly chaotic at home. It might have indeed been the opposite. Jon had recently turned twelve, and privately what that meant to him was that he had been in Elias’s care for nearly five years. The number was important to him because it was so far the longest stretch of time in his whole life in which nothing had changed and nothing had gone wrong and no one had  _ died. _

His growing sense of uneasiness, of impermanence, the feeling that it was only a matter of time until something would happen and Elias would be gone, too-- because that was how it  _ worked,  _ because that what had happened to  _ all  _ the adults in his life-- it was only exacerbated by his close call with  _ A Guest for Mr. Spider. _ It felt like a trick, something that loomed over him still and weighed him down. It hadn’t felt  _ safe  _ to let his guard down and get comfortable, much less to think about making friends, because he kept waiting for something else to happen. He had been so sure that when it inevitably did, it would be the thing that finally ruined everything. 

He had been bracing for an impact that wouldn’t come, not this time. That was the way Sasha had found him. 

As the weeks and months wore on she had started to notice that he was often at the library at the same times she was. She usually spent a lot of time using the computers, and didn’t always frequent the same sections of books that Jon did, but once she took note of it she was persistent. All his attempts to rebuff her friendly gestures were soundly ignored. She just kept trying, kept talking to him, kept hovering around him and asking  _ whatcha doing  _ and  _ whatcha reading  _ and bugging him to come hang out with her instead of doing things by himself all the time. (It did not help that around that time Elias had taken notice of his increasingly withdrawn behavior and started pestering Jon to  _ go make some friends his own age-- _ often pointedly within earshot of Sasha, because he was embarrassing and a menace like that.) 

By the time that year had drawn to a close, she had given Jon no  _ choice  _ but to be her friend. She had just worn him down over time until he had accepted it, and then he’d discovered that they actually had a lot in common. It wasn’t too long after that until Jon met Martin, in seventh grade, that day they got lost in those strange halls and waited together in the nurse’s office. 

Looking back, those two were the very first friends he ever really had. Sasha, who chose him, and Martin, who he chose himself-- they had found Jon during a time when he had really needed to be found. Jon had introduced Martin to Sasha, and she in turn introduced them both to Tim, who had immediately taken to him with such an enthusiastic friendliness that it made Jon feel right at home. He loved them dearly, even if he couldn’t even  _ begin  _ to say it out loud. 

They knew. They had to know, surely, because they were here beside him now, and that was what counted. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, getting soft about archives gang friendship? In MY fic? It’s… more likely than you think. 
> 
> So. First off, the names given to the two students who disappeared in the second scene of this chapter, Timothy Hodge and Harriet Lee, are the names of two of Jane Prentiss’s victims from MAG 6: Squirm. Secondly, the description of students not being able to comprehend and wrap their minds around these entity-related occurrences, I have taken and repurposed directly from MAG 97: We All Ignore the Pit. Generally speaking, for better or worse there will be no outside help for Jon and co. This is their mystery to solve… :)


	10. Chapter 10

“Another fork in the path,” Tim said from the front of the group. “Alright, so… Which way do you think we should go, Jon?” 

“I’m _really_ not as clairvoyant as you seem to think I am, I assure you,” Jon said dryly. 

Tim just grinned. “Sure you’re not. Right or left?” 

Jon sighed, blinked a few times, and peered down each corridor. “...Left,” he said begrudgingly. Martin fumbled for his clipboard and made a note of their direction as they proceeded. 

They had gotten smarter about not charging in blindly and getting lost, but ever since their first excursion when Jon had led the way back out, well. His friends kept teasing him about ‘manifesting new spooky powers’. 

Which was not what it was. It was just a lucky guess. It was just a series of lucky guesses he kept making. It-- It wasn’t like he just _knew_ which way was the right one, that would be absurd. He’d always considered himself good with directions, sure, but directions were nearly meaningless down here-- it was just intuition, obviously. 

Then again, _it’s just intuition_ was, almost verbatim, the excuse he defaulted to giving for the one strange ability he genuinely _did_ have. But even that wasn’t entirely unfair to say, in a way-- it was intuition of a sort, just… not entirely his own. 

Regardless of how exactly he _received_ such insights, they were something Jon had learned to take very seriously. The warnings had helped to tip the scales in his favor more than once. And hopefully they would again, he thought, glancing back over his shoulder briefly as they pressed on. Hopefully they were making the right choices here. All they could do was try the best they could with the tools and knowledge that they had, which was an area that Jon’s ability had always proved invaluable in. It was an edge that he clung to like a candle flame in the gloom; ambiguous and limited, but so much better than wandering blindly in the dark. 

No, Jon always preferred being able to see, even if he rarely liked what he found. Like the first one they’d fought together, way back at the end of seventh grade. That had been rather unpleasant. Thankfully none of them had gotten hurt, but they almost had. Well, _someone_ almost had. 

That one had begun, appropriately enough, at the library. 

It was hot that day. School had recently let out for the summer. In retrospect, upon entering the building Jon _had_ immediately felt faintly uneasy, something about it feeling unplaceably _off_ in a way that did not quite set him on edge but came very close. 

He remembered that they had gotten there a little bit later than usual, because right as they were getting ready to leave Elias had gotten a call. He remembered shifting and pacing uneasily by the door as the minutes wore on and Elias spoke into the phone with a hushed and furious voice. He had not volunteered later who he had been speaking to, and Jon had not quite had the guts to ask, but the vaguely familiar voice of the man on the other end of the phone sounded strangely pleasant and congenial in comparison to Elias’s immediate hostility. That conversation had concluded with Elias abruptly hanging up on whoever had been calling, and the car ride to the library had been very quiet. 

It had only taken a few minutes of half-distracted browsing among the shelves. At some point Jon had simply rounded a corner, scanned the area unthinkingly, and his eyes fell on a tall figure whose back was turned to him. _Not human,_ said his mind, and he quickly ducked back behind a shelf as he tried to control his now-thundering pulse. 

It was… certainly not the _first_ he had ever seen as far as nonhumans went. His mother, to his memory, had not appeared to understand Jon’s sudden trepidation the very few times they had ever encountered such beings. Like sitting on the train a few seats over from the man in the too-big brown coat who had smelled of sickness and something vaguely earthy that brought to mind an image of earthworms squirming after the rain, or standing in line behind the short woman with close-cropped brown hair in an office supplies store who moved much how he imagined a doll wearing a suit of human skin would move-- on the other hand, Elias usually _did_ notice them. For as long as Jon had known him he had been very careful to steer clear of anything and anyone that did not seem right, and so _do not engage_ had thus far been Jon’s main strategy for dealing with such encounters. 

But, well… Elias was not here to see it this time. Over time his paranoia had slowly begun to relent and he had since outgrown the need to nervously hover behind Jon the entire time, and now usually instead opted to bring something to work on until Jon was ready to go. Common sense told Jon he needed to leave immediately, but… something in him hesitated. 

He was curious. He wanted to observe, see what would happen, what it was doing. So he peered cautiously around the corner, and began to watch. 

This particular being, Jon noted, took the form of a tall, rail-thin man dressed in plain dark clothes. During the time that Jon observed him, he never once saw the being speak or interact with anyone directly. However, as it moved throughout the area Jon noticed that no one seemed to pay it any mind at all, simply shuffling out of the way when necessary and moving around it. At some point a staff member began to approach the strange man to ask if he needed help finding anything, but the being just looked at the employee wordlessly, who sort of nodded blankly in response and wandered off. It was… strange. 

It took him some time to realize that the thing was quietly trailing after a girl he didn’t know who was about Jon’s age. She had headphones in and wore a T-shirt with a ghost printed on it, and she looked tired, but not the sort of tired that was caused by staying up too late. He never saw her with anyone else. That was, most likely, the reason the being had chosen her as its mark in the first place: she appeared to have no friends who would have been able to help her, and indeed, it seemed like she was here all by herself. 

Immediately Jon became nervous on her behalf, this quiet stranger who paced the aisles with aimless dejection. But he never quite got a chance to slip between the monster and the girl to warn her or intervene, and he wasn’t sure that it would have been a good idea to cause a scene. He didn’t know what that being was capable of. 

After some time she gave up searching the shelves and headed out of the library, and the creature quietly slipped away in pursuit shortly after, much to Jon’s dismay. He watched anxiously out of one of the windows, but luckily she didn’t seem to be going far-- just to the park across the street, where he could make out the shape of the girl as she sat forlornly on one of the swings. 

Of course, Jon very quickly decided that he couldn’t just turn around and _leave._ But here his conscience and his caution and his curiosity fought against each other, twisting together nervously in his gut, and-- he hesitated. 

Sasha found him before he could make up his mind on what to do next. 

The library was _their_ place, where their friendship was born and their routines orbited around each other; she knew when to expect him, and he had failed to come and find her and greet her as usual, and so of course she wanted to know why. And he trusted her, trusted her judgement and her steadying presence. 

Jon had never told anyone about his ability before. He didn’t know how to, and could never quite find the words to explain it in detail without feeling an oppressive sense of foreboding prickling heavily on the back of his neck. There had been his mother, who would never have believed him, and there was Elias, who wordlessly understood yet refused to talk about it. But he trusted Sasha, and so he forced himself to work up the courage to explain as much of it as he could, explain the sinister being and the girl he feared was in danger. 

She did not hesitate or ask Jon if he was sure he wasn’t just imagining things. She didn’t even ask him to prove himself, explain how he knew, as he’d feared she would. She just took one look at the grim certainty in his eyes and said, “I believe you.”

It would have been a huge comfort if she hadn’t immediately followed up with a firm “I’m coming with you.” 

But that was just Sasha. She had always been stubborn that way.

Jon had just sighed, half in annoyance and half in relief that he wouldn’t have to face this thing by himself. He excused himself briefly to go find his guardian and inform him that he and Sasha were going to pop over to the park across the way (which was not a _lie_ as far as Jon was concerned, though of course he did neglect to mention that they were doing so to keep tabs on a monster). Elias had not objected at the time, but then, he also had still seemed distracted and out of it, and in fact had not responded much at all. 

(Jon had simply elected to interpret his lack of reply as permission, and quietly slipped away before he could be told otherwise.)

By the time he made his way back to Sasha, she just smiled deviously at him and told him she’d already texted Tim and Martin and told them to come and meet them here. Jon could have strangled her if he didn’t like her so much. 

“Tim would kill me if I did something stupid and dangerous without him,” she had said simply in her defense. “And I think you know you would feel better if Martin were here.” She had a point, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. 

“Why get them involved?” He had protested uselessly. “Either this _is_ going to be something dangerous and we’re just dragging them into our mistake, or it’s nothing, and we’ll just waste their time.” But it was already too late, and Sasha knew it, and she just grinned. 

So they waited for the other two to arrive from the library, keeping an eye on the girl across the street. The minutes dragged by agonizingly. In retrospect he thinks maybe he remembers overhearing part of a conversation between two of the librarians about a strange new book that had simply shown up and did not belong, but that didn’t matter to him yet, and so didn’t stick out to him. 

Once arrived, Jon filled Tim and Martin in on the situation as they crossed to the park. Again he braced himself to be asked questions that he would not be able to answer, and again his friends surprised him by choosing instead to believe him. That was just as well, because they did not have the time to stop and debate; before they reached her, the girl got up, dusted herself off, and set her feet in the opposite direction as she began to briskly walk home. 

Jon and his friends exchanged glances. They saw it then, the monster that made a shadow of itself as it quietly pursued her, and she was none the wiser for it. No one else was. Much like in the library, no one paid the thing any attention at all as it moved through the streets, as if its presence simply slid off the minds of all who saw it without taking hold. All except for Jon, for reasons he did not yet understand. Once he showed his friends how to look, though, they saw it too, and none of them could just stand and watch now. 

Of course, that did not help them if they couldn’t get between the monster and its victim before it was too late. So they followed. 

What Jon remembered most about it was the look on her face when it happened. 

In the end, after she rounded a corner onto a more secluded street, the thing pounced, sweeping up behind her with a hand over her mouth as it dragged her struggling form into an empty, seemingly abandoned house. 

Jon and his friends rushed forward with alarm, and when they were close enough to see in through the window-- Jon remembered the horrible, contorted shape of the monster, its jaw gaping open as something hideous protruded from its mouth: a snaking, razor-toothed mockery of a tongue poised to strike. 

_I don’t think I’d expected that would be what a vampire would look like,_ he remembered thinking at the time. It was a strange, frightening thought to be having, if only for an instant. 

But in that instant, the girl clutched in the monster’s grip did not look frightened at all. Jon would have expected to have been terrified in her position. Her figure was tense, and there was a certain intensity in her gaze, yes, but there was no fear in it. If anything, it was like a recognition, something grim and resolute. 

It was blurry after that. Jon remembered the sense of immediate peril that seized him, the recklessness of realizing that surprise was the only card they had in hand and they could not afford the seconds it would cost to be rational. He remembered charging in, Tim, Martin and Sasha hot on his heels. There was a struggle. There had been shouting and chaos, and ultimately Jon ended up slumped to the floor amidst the dust and debris with the girl’s knee digging into his ribcage. He thinks he might have tackled it. That would have been a rather stupid move and would have surely only resulted in his own death as well if he had been by himself, but he wasn’t, and so he survived. 

No one remembers whose wild quick thinking had resulted in pushing a jagged chunk of a broken wooden beam through its spongy, inhuman skin. Martin was pretty certain it was Sasha, who swears it was Tim, who says he doesn’t remember doing anything like that. 

The end result was the same, though, and once the threat was neutralized, Jon gingerly picked himself up off of the dusty floor and extended a hand down to help the other girl up. She took it, standing unsteadily and blinking with shock. 

“Who the hell are you guys?” The girl said, dazed. 

Jon had to stifle a laugh at that. “You’re welcome,” he said. 

“I… yeah. I’m sorry, I-- thank you,” she said. “Really, thank you for-- for saving me. God, I should be dead right now, huh?” She laughed a little weakly. 

“N- Not sure you’re the only one,” he mumbled quietly in agreement, very much aware of the fact that if he had come here by himself as originally intended, things would surely have gone very wrong very quickly. He took a deep breath and tried to push the thought from his mind. “But… at least it’s over now.” 

“Since you, uh, saved my life, can I at least get your names?” The girl said. 

“My name is Jonathan Sims,” he said, plucking a splinter of wood from his scuffed-up arm. “These are my friends, uh…” 

“Timothy Stoker, at your service,” Tim said with a bow that almost ended in him losing his footing and collapsing to the ground. Martin reached over quickly to steady him, smiling sheepishly at her. 

“I’m Martin Blackwood,” he introduced himself with a polite little wave. 

Sasha reached over and brushed some dust off the back of Martin’s shirt. “Sasha James,” she said cheerfully. “What’s your name?” 

“I’m Georgie,” the girl replied, giving them all a shaky smile. “Er-- Georgina Barker.” 

“Well, Georgie, I must say I wish we’d met under slightly less… disturbing circumstances,” Jon had said, “but-- I am glad to see you’re alright. Are you injured at all?” 

Georgie shook her head. “A-- A little out of it, maybe, but not hurt. I’m alright. Thank you,” she said, exhaling a shaky breath. “But I do have… one question. How did you-- how did you know I was in danger? I don’t even know you,” she said. “So… how did you find me?” 

“I have no idea,” Jon lied right as Sasha volunteered, “oh, Jon just kind of knew.” 

Jon sighed heavily, but Georgie just laughed. 

That was the start of one very peculiar friendship for Jon, and the start of a series of occurrences not unlike this one: Jon seeing something that no one else could see or no one could seem to explain or understand, and Sasha, Tim and Martin following him after it, again and again, reckless decisions into unknowable discoveries into turns of events made different for their involvement in them. That was the first time they chose not to look away. That was the beginning of it. 

* * *

“How much longer do we have?” Asked Tim from the lead. 

Sasha reached for her phone. “Not long,” she said after a moment. “We should probably start heading back soon.” 

“Alright,” Tim sighed, shining his torch down the length of the passage they were in. 

Much like before, there were doors dotted here and there along the stone walls. None of them had yielded any particularly interesting contents, if they opened at all. Still, Tim said, “we’ll just check the rest of the doors in this stretch and then turn around, alright?” 

They had not necessarily been expecting to find anything. But it was Martin who turned a particularly stiff handle and gave a start when it actually swung open. 

“Um,” he said after a moment, “I think maybe you all should come have a look at this.” 

Quickly they crowded around behind him, peering through the doorway. 

It was a small chamber. At first glance it did not appear much different from a number of other such dead-end rooms they had found, but upon further inspection, the debris in this room were much less scattered and random than much of the others. There was a red jacket lying on the floor, spread out as though one would a blanket. A wobbly, discarded old school desk had found its way here somehow, where it was pushed up against the back wall. 

On the desk sat a black backpack. There was a crystal keychain attached to one of the zippers, which was partly open, and a pin with an illustration of the phases of the moon was affixed to the front. 

“That’s… That’s Jane’s, isn’t it,” Sasha said quietly, and Jon just nodded. 

They stepped into the room cautiously, with Tim hanging back to keep an eye on the way they came. 

“Alright, so, we’ve found her, then,” Martin said slowly. 

“In a sense,” Jon said. 

“She may not be here now, but it’s clear that she _has_ been.” Sasha surveyed their surroundings thoughtfully. “Maybe recently.” 

“Yeah, this is probably the closest we’ve gotten so far,” Tim remarked. “About time our efforts actually paid off, huh?”

“We’re definitely on her trail, now, at the least,” Martin agreed. He approached the desk, picking up the backpack. “So… we know where she’s been, then, but not what she’s doing-- oh, god,” he said, abruptly dropping the bag. 

It hit the ground with a sort of wet _thump,_ and twisting silver shapes spilled out. 

Sasha let out a strangled yelp, and Martin seized up with shock. “Get back, get back, get back!” Jon exclaimed, grabbing Martin by the arm and dragging him away from the bag, Sasha following suit as they hastily retreated to the doorway. 

They were worms. Segmented, squirming things oozed out of the half-open bag as it lay on its side, wriggling wetly and beginning to crawl about in a sluggish fashion as though caught off guard by the abrupt disturbance. 

“W- Well,” said Tim, aghast as he peered at them. _“…Shit._ I… I guess now we know the freaky evil bugs she kept talking about were, uh, definitely real!” 

“Oh, Jane,” Jon said quietly in dismay. 

“I’ve… I’ve never seen anything quite like them before,” Sasha murmured, looking nervously to Martin, who was still reeling with disgust and dread. 

The worms had begun to snake towards them. Their movements were still slow and largely uncoordinated, yet there was an unmistakable purpose to them, something sticky and writhing and malevolent. Jon shuddered at the sight of it. 

“Close the door,” said Jon, and Martin was quick to comply. 

He wasn’t sure if that would really contain them forever. He didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out. 

“L- Let’s get the hell out of here,” Jon said, and nobody had any complaint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I didn’t have Georgie tagged as a character on this fic before? That’s been fixed now. Introducing her has been fun. Picking up a missing classmate’s backpack only to find it filled to the brim with evil worms has been, uh, decidedly not fun for these guys on the other hand. That would probably make my personal list of top 10 things I wouldn't want to find in MY backpack at the very least!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Hey, heads up: content warning for themes of grief and loss.]

The summer Jon had first started investigating the supernatural and consequently met Georgie had proven itself miserable in terms of stifling heat. There was a day somewhere near the end of it that he remembered sitting in Georgie’s living room, the dusty old box fan in the window running at its highest setting not being nearly strong enough to make much of a difference. He remembered watching her from the couch as she puttered around the kitchen, looking for something suitable for them to drink. 

“I’m just gonna make some kool-aid,” she had said eventually. Jon would have gotten up to help her, but her cat had made himself comfortable in Jon’s lap and had no intent on getting up soon, so of course he was pinned to the spot. 

He ran his fingers through The Admiral’s thick fur and tried very hard not to let his thoughts spiral out of control while Georgie was in the other room. He was not doing a very good job. His hands were beginning to tremble. He wondered if it bothered the cat at all. 

In the car on the way to drop Jon off at Georgie’s house, Elias had at one point been forced to come to a sudden halt as some reckless driver ran through a red light, nearly colliding with them. Elias had simply hissed a startled curse and grumbled something about idiots not paying attention, but Jon’s heart had not stopped pounding since. 

It felt laughably, agonizingly ridiculous to think, but to Jon and his looming paranoia that sooner or later something terrible was going to happen again, it had felt like a threat. It had felt like the universe’s way of saying, _do not get comfortable. Do not forget that everything could shatter again in an instant._

It was funny. Jon had never realized he had been counting until the numbers stopped adding up. His father, the first to go, had died when Jon was only two years old or so-- not old enough to have any memories worth remembering of him, but just old enough to realize distantly that things changed after that, that there was turmoil and unsteadiness after that. Next was his mother when he was about five and a half; that was three years in between his father dying and five years altogether herself. Then his grandmother, murdered when he was seven-- only two years, if even that much. 

He hadn’t been counting at first. Three years. Five years. Two years, if that. He was counting now. He saw it. 

“Jon?” said Georgie as she returned, handing him a plastic cup. “Are you alright? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost or something.” 

_A ghost,_ her words echoed in his head. 

Jon started to laugh despite himself-- he couldn’t help it-- he laughed until his laughter threatened to contort itself into a sob, and then he tried hurriedly to compose himself. 

He thought of the long talks he and Georgie had shared since becoming friends. He thought of Georgie sitting on his couch and staring at the floor as she told him the story of her childhood friend Alex, who had been in a mysterious accident some time ago that resulted in her falling into a coma.

“Georgie, can I tell you something really, really stupid?” Jon asked her. 

“Of course,” she said without hesitation. 

Jon forced himself to take a deep breath. 

He remembered Georgie telling him how she had been in the hospital room with Alex on some cold and dreary day, rambling away bleakly to her unresponsive body, when she suddenly began to stir in her hospital bed and beckoned Georgie to lean in close. So she did. 

_The moment you die,_ Alex had whispered hoarsely to her, _will feel exactly the same as this one._ Immediately she went still once more. She was declared dead before the day was done. 

He thought of Georgie with her expression flat and controlled as she shared her grief, trying to explain how it felt so hard to be _afraid_ of anything anymore after that, to muster up the effort it took to feel a sense of peril through layers upon layers of loss and hurt and bleak numbness. That was why she had not been frightened when the vampire attacked her-- to her, it had seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy, like the final piece of a grim puzzle slotting into place. Something deserved and anticipated. 

Georgie understood grief, understood the feeling that the shadow of death was looming over you. Maybe, Jon hoped-- maybe she would understand this too. 

“I can’t stop thinking something terrible is going to happen,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “To-- to Elias.” 

Georgie paused mid-sip and gave him a look over the top of her cup. 

“Why… would you think that’s going to happen?” She asked slowly. 

“Because it always does,” Jon said. “Because that’s what’s always happened before. I start to get used to things and then something terrible happens and everything changes again. That’s-- that’s how it’s always been.” 

Georgie was quiet for a moment as she considered. “That doesn’t mean it has to happen again,” She pointed out. “You’ve got no good reason to think that-- what, just ‘cause stuff happened to your parents and your grandma, that means Elias has to die, too? You don’t think maybe things are just gonna be okay this time for once?” 

“That’s impossible,” Jon said miserably. “I’m not… I can’t… I can’t possibly be that lucky.” 

Because he _had_ thought that maybe things were going to be okay this time, until suddenly he didn’t feel so safe assuming so anymore. 

Because so far in his life he’d never really gotten the chance to know what exactly stability was supposed to feel like, but he thought maybe he wanted it to feel something like this. Like sipping kool-aid in Georgie’s stuffy living room and staying up all night on the phone with Sasha and falling asleep on Martin’s shoulder during one of their group sleepovers and being crushed in one of Tim’s bear hugs while making such a show of being indignant and demanding to be let go when in reality he couldn’t mind less. Like Elias digging Jon’s mother’s old marked-up cookbook out of a box some dreary afternoon and the two of them trying to recreate one of her old dishes and only barely managing not to burn the whole kitchen down in the process. 

Because to Jon, that felt like the final thread connecting him to his old life-- he was the only one left who had more-or-less always _been_ there. He knew that in theory his mom and dad were friends with Elias in college. When Jon remembered Elias from back before his mom died, though, he mostly remembered his mom treating him like a weird little brother, when he would turn up occasionally for a visit and she would invite him in and poke fun at him for being so overdressed and tell him he needed to get a haircut. Then she would decide eventually that he wasn’t eating enough and announce that she was going to make them all some lunch, and Elias would try to “help”, which mostly meant he would hover around in the kitchen and start organizing things, because he had always been a bit of a neat freak. On the contrary, Jon’s mother had always been a big believer in the values of organized chaos and having a method to one’s madness, and thus would inevitably banish him from the kitchen for the heinous crime of trying to clean things. Then later one of the adults would make some remark about how the days were getting shorter now that it was autumn, and Jon, curious as ever, would pipe up and ask _why is that?_ And immediately Elias would turn to him and start explaining the planet’s tilt on its axis and its orbit around the sun in regards to its effect on the seasons in detail. His mom would shake her head at them and say _he’s only five, Elias, I don’t think he knows what half of those words mean._ She was right, of course. Jon had barely understood a thing he said, but had loved every word of it, because he simply liked knowing things, and always had, even when he didn’t understand them. 

They still hadn’t managed to perfect their rendition of his mom’s recipe yet. 

He had so much to lose. The weight of it all was so, so much, and it made Jon’s shoulders shake, it made his hands tremble as he stared down into the cup Georgie brought him and tried not to choke with the sheer grief of it all. 

“I’m just scared,” he said finally, his voice weak. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I’m just… really, really scared. Something’s going to happen, I-- I _know_ it. Something’s going to happen because I don’t _want_ it to,” Jon insisted desperately. “I don’t want anything to change anymore-- I- I like you guys, you and Sasha and them, I like having _friends_ for once, I actually _like_ my life this way, and I-- I don’t want anything to happen to him, I don’t even know what’ll happen to me, where I’ll _go--_ there’s no one else left, I d- don’t even _have_ any other family-- and I don’t want to have to _leave_ you--” 

“Jon, hey…” Georgie murmured, moving to sit down beside him and wrap an arm around him. The Admiral, perturbed by this, jumped down onto the floor and pranced away. 

“The world is _not_ out to get you, you know,” she informed him firmly, which somehow managed to earn a laugh from Jon despite everything. 

“I _told_ you it was stupid,” he grumbled, offering her a weak smile. 

“I think you need to talk to him,” she said in reply, and Jon frowned. 

“But that sounds… hard.” 

“I’m sure it will be,” Georgie agreed. “But I still think you should at least try.”

“...Maybe,” Jon mumbled reluctantly. “I-- Maybe.” 

She was silent for another moment, but she took his free hand and gave it a sympathetic squeeze, and her quiet understanding meant the world to him. 

“Drink your kool-aid,” she commanded him. So he did, and she put something on on the TV, and eventually as Jon’s anxiety began to dissipate things felt okay again for a while. 

He knew she was right, though. If anything, finally bringing it up only made him realize that this was a problem that was unlikely to solve itself. 

* * *

The next of their little investigations was their last. Jon and his friends had gone on quite a number of them by the time that summer began to reach its end, and at the time, nothing had stood out about this one that had given them any reason to think it would necessarily be their final one. 

That was The Boneturner. Ultimately, the less said about it, the better, and for the sake of his sanity Jon tried not to remember it all in detail. The particulars of it had been simple enough to begin with: Jon had overheard one of the librarians-- a polite man named Mr. Adekoya-- talking about the theft of a strange book from the library that had happened some time ago. Jon remembered him saying that he’d known the man who stole it, and remembered him saying that the book had… done something to him, made him behave very strangely. 

Jon did not know _how_ he knew that the book Mr. Adekoya spoke of was in any way connected to the book he’d encountered at the very beginning of it all, back in sixth grade, but… there was a sort of disquieting recognition to it, an awareness that felt cold as it prickled the back of his mind. So of course when he overheard the librarian say that the culprit had been sighted lurking around an old abandoned gym as of late, there was no question in Jon’s mind that he was going to get involved. 

In a way he’d been looking for answers that he wasn’t going to find, not there, and not yet, and in some ways perhaps not ever. He wanted to know what those books _were,_ and what had really happened to him, and _why,_ and why it had to be _him,_ and-- and a lot of other things that he was a fool to think he would be able to find by connecting these two particular dots. This was very much the wrong question to be asking. 

But at the time, Jon had never stopped to wonder if perhaps he was about to get in far over his head. He had simply messaged Sasha, Tim and Martin to tell them he’d found something. _It’s time,_ he had said, and so they came, because they always did.

So the four of them had gotten together and developed their woefully inadequate little plan and when the time came they set off, oblivious to their grave miscalculations. 

They were lucky to have escaped with their lives at all. 

What Jon remembered mostly was chaos and things quickly going wrong and getting out of hand. They did manage to escape, of course, battered and scraped and numb with bleak terror. Jon remembered clutching his chest, gasping and panting and half-limping on the wet sidewalk as Sasha pulled him along through that miserable drizzle, which was quickly threatening to become a downpour. They were solely focused on putting distance in between themselves and the building where it happened. Then, because it wasn’t enough that they’d just had to make a frantic retreat from their worst failure yet, Tim suddenly paused and said, “er, Jon-- isn’t that your dad’s car pulling up?” 

Which… of course. Of course this had to happen too. 

He didn’t have the energy to explain for the umpteenth time that he was _not_ Jon’s dad. He didn’t even have the energy to question how he’d known where Jon and his friends had gone at all, because he _thought_ they’d covered their tracks well enough, though it seemed he was mistaken. The vehicle rolled to a stop beside them and Jon just heaved a pained sigh as he tugged open the passenger side door and plunked down into the seat, with Tim, Martin and Sasha sheepishly climbing into the back (where Martin ended up squished between the other two in the middle seat, no less). 

“Hello, Jon,” said Elias in a tight, controlled tone, “hello, Sasha, Martin, Tim. Would the four of you care to explain what on _earth_ you think you’re doing here?”

Jon and his friends exchanged glances. By unspoken agreement they decided that they were much too tired to even bother trying to lie. 

“Fighting The Boneturner,” Sasha volunteered eventually. 

“He’s got this messed up book that lets him steal peoples’ bones or something, like for his evil bone collection,” Tim added helpfully. 

“...Okay,” said Elias, “and did you ever stop to ask yourselves for a _moment_ if maybe you shouldn’t deliberately place yourselves in danger at the hands of someone who can-- what-- rip your bones out??” 

“Yes, yes, we figured that out already, Elias,” Jon muttered darkly. 

“Wh-- don’t you talk back to me! What on earth were you thinking?? Sneaking off to go-- are you _trying_ to get yourselves killed??” Elias said furiously. _“Christ!_ It’s a miracle none of you were seriously injured!” 

Tim and Sasha exchanged mortified glances, Martin looked like he was ready to curl up on the ground and die, and Jon suddenly became very interested in the scenery out the window. 

“What happened,” Elias demanded. 

“Well, Jon got his bones stolen,” Sasha said bluntly. 

There was a moment of stunned silence on Elias’s part. 

“Wh- What, I-- _excuse_ me?? What?? Jon, you-- _what!?”_

“It was only two of them, I’m fine,” Jon said weakly. 

“Only tw-- Jonathan Sims!!” Elias exclaimed. “You can’t just-- wh-- I don’t suppose you were planning on _telling_ me that??” 

“Well, no, I thought you’d freak out if I did,” Jon said. 

“I’m not freaking out!!!” Elias nearly shrieked, clearly freaking out. Actually, he was starting to hyperventilate a little. “Y- You-- I can’t-- do you n- need to go to the hospital?? Am I supposed to be taking you all home, or to the emergency room??” 

“Calm _down,_ Elias, I just said I was fine,” Jon said through gritted teeth. 

“You want me to calm down?? Your _bones_ got stolen!!” Elias exclaimed. “Wh- What do you _mean_ you’re-- I really should _not_ have to tell you this, but having less bones than you did before is _not_ fine!” 

“Elias!” Jon snapped. “Will you please breathe for _one second!_ They were just ribs, I’m not going to _die_ from it! And it’s not like I lost any blood--” 

_“How_ can that be the case if you--”

“When h- he does that Boneturning thing, he just-- reaches into you and takes it, doesn’t even break the skin,” Jon said, shaky. “So… really… it’s just that. It c- could have been a lot worse, I-- I’m fine, Elias. You don’t need to have a panic attack.” 

There was silence for a moment. 

“Did it hurt?” Elias eventually asked. 

“Yes,” Jon admitted, breathing a pained breath. “Y- Yes, it did, quite-- quite a lot, really, but I’m…”

“Oh, Jon…,” Elias said quietly, devastated. 

Jon fidgeted miserably, the anguish in his tone twisting into him like a knife, making his chest hurt in a new way. 

“Really, I-- I’m fine. I know it’s alarming, but you don’t… I mean, It’s not like I haven’t been hurt _before_ when we…” he trailed off. 

“...Before,” Elias repeated. “I… I see.” 

“Elias--”

“So how long, then, have you four been doing this-- what is it, _monster hunting?--_ without my knowing?” 

“I-- I don’t know if I’d quite call it that, but…” Jon started. 

It was Martin who finally answered. “About three months,” he said apprehensively. “Since summer started.” 

Elias took a deep breath, letting the information sink in. 

“...I should have been watching,” Elias mumbled to himself quietly, seeming defeated. “I-- I should have been watching.” He shook his head. 

“And… you said this isn’t the first time you’ve been injured because of it, Jon?” Elias continued after a moment, a hint of accusation creeping back into his voice. 

“What-- you want me to recount every time? God, I don’t know if my memory is that good,” Jon mumbled. 

“That is _really_ worrying of you to say, you understand that.” 

“I mean, there was that creepy girl with the fire and stuff who tried to grab your hand and burn you,” Sasha supplied. 

Jon winced. “That-- yeah. That was unpleasant.” 

“When was that??” Elias asked. “I don’t recall you ever…” 

“Er, if I remember correctly I told you I’d burned my hand by grabbing a hot pan with no oven mitt,” Jon said sheepishly, and recognition and angry bewilderment flashed across Elias’s face. “It-- it was fine, really, I healed from that one fairly quickly, b- barely even scarred,” Jon added for all the good that did him, which was none. 

“Oh, yeah, and there was that time we went to investigate that guy who threw people into the sky,” Tim volunteered. 

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but in that guy’s defense, Jon was being pretty rude by asking about his scars,” Sasha said. 

“I _said_ I was _sorry,_ he didn’t need to break my whole leg about it,” Jon grumbled. 

_“What!”_ Elias exclaimed. “Is that what that was?? Jon, you told me you fell out of a tree trying to rescue Georgie’s cat!!” 

“Well, I _did_ fall, he just made the fall really long, is the thing,” Jon defended. 

“Is it really falling if you were-- I mean, you didn’t really fall _from_ anything,” Martin said. “He just sort of… made the ground go away, but only for you personally.” 

“Alright, alright, I get it, I’m familiar with the-- never mind,” Elias said. “But you-- good _grief,_ just-- what on earth were you thinking?? What were you hoping to _prove_ by putting yourselves in danger like this-- that there are threats out there in this world that can’t be explained? Congrats, you figured it out-- now _stop provoking them,_ for god’s sake!! You really should know better, all _four_ of you should know better-- _especially_ you, Jon,” he said pointedly. 

For a moment Jon felt a chill at the accusation, because to him it felt like such a clear jab at his encounter with _A Guest for Mr. Spider,_ but then anger welled up in his chest as his feelings of frustration and fear and helplessness twined together into something sharp and pathetic. 

_“How_ am I supposed to know better, Elias? When you-- you _know_ about these things, by your own admission, and still you never tell me _anything!_ What would you have me do, just-- just-- close my eyes and pretend none of this ever happened and act like the world is normal, like everything’s fine?? Well, I can’t do that!!”

Elias was quiet for a long moment. 

“You… are not… _ready_ to know these things,” he said finally, his voice tight. “There are things that I _can_ explain to you, in time-- and believe me, when that day comes, I will, I _promise_ you I will-- but if anything, you’ve shown me that today is not that day,” he said tiredly, all the fight draining out of his shoulders. “And there are… things that I _can’t_ explain to you, things that you will have to-- to learn to see on your own. But not like this,” he said. _“Please,_ not like this, I am _begging_ you. You could have been killed.” 

“Elias…” 

“You can’t do this anymore,” Elias insisted wearily. “You must know that. You can’t do this again.” 

Tim, Sasha and Martin looked at each other grimly, and at last Jon sighed in defeat. 

“I know,” Jon said finally. “I… we know. We won’t.” 

“We’re sorry,” Martin said quietly. 

“We should have been more careful,” Sasha agreed morosely. 

“So, are we in trouble, then, or…?” Tim asked. 

Elias just sighed. 

* * *

Tim was the first to get dropped off, then Sasha. As they got closer to home, though, Martin began to fidget nervously. 

“Are you alright, Martin? You’ve been quiet,” said Elias. 

Martin stared at his feet. “You’re not going to tell my mother, are you?” He asked tentatively after a moment. 

“...What?” 

“Please don’t say anything to her,” Martin pleaded quietly. “She’ll-- she’ll be so angry, and she’s already been so upset lately, I don’t even know how she’ll react-- I don’t know what she’ll _do,_ I--” 

“Martin,” Elias said as they reached Martin’s driveway. “I’m not going to-- I have absolutely no intention of… further complicating your situation.” 

“Oh,” said Martin, his voice wobbly and uncertain, “th- thank you. I’m sorry.” 

Elias shook his head. “Just take care,” he said.

“See you later,” Jon murmured, and Martin gave Jon one last nervous smile before he got out. 

Soon Elias and Jon reached their own home, and as Jon closed the door behind him, he felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over him as the last of the fear and adrenaline drained out of his body. 

He was sorely tempted to head straight to his room, collapse into bed, and try to get some rest. But then, no, he didn’t even think he would be able to sleep if he did. He would just end up lying there and listening to the rain and the heavy thud of his heartbeat in his aching ribcage, and besides-- there was still more he did not understand. 

“So, are we going to actually discuss any of this at all, or…?” Jon asked. 

For a moment he was worried that Elias would refuse, and they would go back to pointedly, consciously choosing not to talk about the unexplainable things they both knew that they knew about. Jon didn’t know if he could take that anymore after everything he’d been through. Even a lecture would have been preferable to that-- at least that would mean he would have to acknowledge what had happened, what had _been_ happening.

But Elias just took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Yes, I suppose we’d better,” he said at length, reluctantly. He fidgeted. “But… if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to make some tea, first. Do you, er-- do you want any?” 

“No thanks,” Jon mumbled, and Elias shrugged. 

“Hm. If you say so,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen. 

Jon waited for him rather miserably in the living room, where he stared out the window at the dreary weather and watched raindrops slide down the glass. After a short while he began to hear clattering sounds from the kitchen, running water and dishes clinking and cabinets being opened and closed, which he intuited to be Elias stress-cleaning as he waited for the water to boil. A few minutes into this Jon began to regret turning down his offer of tea, and wondered briefly if it would be worth it to get up and go tell him he’d changed his mind. But found that he couldn’t summon up the courage to do so, and that only made him feel worse. 

In the end when Elias returned, he did so with two mugs anyway, wordlessly handing one to Jon. He took it and wrapped his fingers around it and let the warmth seep into his cold hands, and did not bother to wonder how Elias had known without being told, because that really was the least of his worries right now. 

Elias did seem slightly calmer now, though, as he carefully placed himself at the opposite end of the couch from Jon. Still, there was another moment of hesitation as he struggled to find the words to even begin to untangle the mess of a situation they’d found themselves in. 

“So,” Elias began eventually, sipping his tea and not meeting Jon’s eyes. “First of all, I’m going to… _try_ not to lecture you, because I don’t think it will help, and because I think you already know that was a very dangerous and reckless thing you did.” 

“I believe I’ve already paid the price for my carelessness, yes,” Jon muttered. 

“R- Right.” Elias glanced over at Jon, trying very hard to keep his expression calm. “And you’re-- you’re sure you’re alright? Are you still hurting, I-- I can bring you some pain relievers, if you need--” 

“I’m _fine,_ Elias,” Jon insisted once again. “I’ll take something for it _after_ we’ve talked,” he said. 

Elias frowned, no doubt realizing that this was Jon’s way of saying, _I will not let you walk away from this conversation._

“I’m sure you have questions, but I must remind you that I can’t answer all of them,” Elias said. 

“Can’t, or won’t?” Jon pressed. 

“Jon…” Elias sighed. “I’m sorry.” 

“...What?” 

There was a brief moment where Elias looked almost as surprised as Jon did, as if he hadn’t intended to say that, but his confusion quickly resolved itself into something careful and purposeful. “The… The book, the one you brought home last year. That is something I _can_ tell you about, now, I believe,” he offered, a compromise, and Jon’s heart nearly stopped for a moment. “If you still want to know, that is.” 

“I do,” Jon agreed without hesitation, trying to keep the dread he felt out of his voice. 

Elias gave another resigned sigh as he tried yet again to find the right words. “As you… appear to have figured out on your own by now, there are a number of other such… dangerous books in existence, each behaving in their own separate and often volatile ways. It’s-- er-- hard to say exactly _why_ they function the way they do, or how it is specifically that they came to be, or to… measure the havoc and devastation they tend to inflict on those unfortunate enough to encounter them, without knowing how to properly defend themselves. The… The specific book that you encountered, it belongs to the-- hmm. It… concerns itself with a power that… manipulates things, it controls things. It bends your will, it pulls the strings, rearranges things in unknowable ways-- that is… unknowable, until it’s too late, of course. Are you with me so far?” 

“I… I think so,” Jon murmured, equal parts unsettled and intrigued. 

“While I was fortunately, er, able to intervene before the book-- or more specifically, that power-- was able to harm you outright, I was… I… I thought I could-- outsmart it, by removing you from the situation entirely. I thought I could keep you safe that way,” said Elias, staring down defeatedly into his half-empty mug. “I was wrong.” 

“Elias…” 

“By… altering my own behaviour in response to its threat, I fear I only played right into its hands, in the end,” Elias continued, his composure cracking. “Jon, I’m sorry. I-- I should have been watching, I should have _seen--_ but I didn’t, and you-- you got hurt because of it. I am so, so sorry.” 

“Elias, it’s-- it’s not your fault,” Jon said quietly. “I… _knew_ what I was doing was a bad idea, going after dangerous things and dangerous people-- I just didn’t… That didn’t stop me, because I was… I guess I was just-- curious,” he admitted. “P- Probably much too curious for my own good, in retrospect, of course, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. I just… felt like I had to know. Even if it was dangerous. E- Even if it hurt.” Jon shook his head. “I’m sorry. I know that probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” 

There was a momentary pause, and then Elias took a deep breath and sighed. “I… I understand,” he said. “Believe me, I do understand that.” 

“Besides,” Jon continued, “you can hardly be blamed for not _watching_ close enough, that’s ridiculous. It’s not like you have eyes everywhere.” 

Elias just frowned. In retrospect, that was maybe the least reassuring reaction he could have had due to the subtle implication that perhaps he did, in fact, have eyes everywhere. 

“So… Were there any other questions you wanted to ask?” Elias asked. 

For a moment Jon considered trying to grill him about any number of other topics, because there was still so much that he did not understand, but he was just so… tired. 

Jon just shook his head. “I don’t think so. At least, not now. A- Another time, maybe.” 

“Then I _am_ going to insist that you take something for your…” Elias gestured to Jon’s chest, “injuries, as per your earlier promise that you’d do so once we were finished talking.” 

“Alright,” Jon relented, feeling weak from everything that had transpired. 

Elias returned shortly with a couple of pills and Jon took them with the last of his now-lukewarm tea. 

“I… cannot _believe_ your _bones_ got stolen,” Elias muttered once again, shaking his head. “I know, I know, you keep insisting you’re fine, but-- out of all the strange things that could happen…” 

“At this point I’m starting to think you’re more worried about it than I am,” Jon groused.

“Well, _one_ of us certainly must be,” Elias grumbled a little teasingly. 

“Then I suppose that can be your job,” said Jon half-jokingly.

Elias shook his head. _“Really,_ Jon, one of these days I swear you’re going to be the death of me. Good lord, it’ll be a miracle if I even make it until you’re eighteen with my sanity intact at this rate…” 

And… Jon didn’t know what it was about it that stuck in his chest, made his words die in his throat. 

It was such a simple thing. It was such a stupid little thing. 

All he knew was that _you’re going to be the death of me_ echoed inside of Jon’s head like it was the loudest sound in the room. It jabbed at his insecurities like an open wound through his weakened defenses, it pulled at the last of Jon’s frayed nerves until they snapped, and suddenly-- after everything that had happened-- Jon had reached his breaking point. 

“Don’t say that,” said Jon quietly. 

“I-- what?” Elias said, surprised. 

“Don’t _say_ that,” Jon repeated, his voice beginning to tremble. “Don’t even joke. That’s not-- you can’t…” 

It was-- it was like a dam had cracked in Jon’s mind, and all of his anxieties were welling up all at once, all his paranoia and fear that something terrible was bound to happen and shake the foundations of his life until they finally crumbled into nothing. 

“That’s not funny,” Jon insisted. “That isn’t _funny,_ don’t you realize that? You can’t just _say_ things like that!”

He didn’t know why it had taken this long for it to click, but maybe, deep down, there had been a part of him that kept chasing monsters and throwing himself at danger because at least in confronting it he’d felt like he had any say in the matter at all. In a sense it had been his own way of saying _if something’s going to happen, let it happen to me instead, for once--_ and now it had, and he so, so desperately wanted that to finally be enough. 

Like he could try to bargain with fate. It was ridiculous, and it _hurt_ that it was ridiculous. 

“What do you… I’m sorry?” Elias said uncertainly. 

Jon’s throat stung, his hands trembled. “Don’t-- just-- don’t talk about dying,” he said. “You-- You know I’m terrified, right? It’s been six years, Elias!” He exclaimed, so painfully aware of how pathetic and incomprehensible he must have sounded. “Six years since my grandmother got killed and nothing’s happened to you _yet,_ I’m terrified-- I’m not an idiot!! There is a _pattern,_ and I- I _see_ it, I _see_ it this time-- everyone needs to stop treating me like I’m overreacting, I’m not stupid!! There _is_ evidence, you all are just-- not-- _looking_ at it!!” He yelled, and lashing out did not make him feel better, it made him feel so much worse. 

But Elias just blinked at him in shock for another moment as Jon stood there with his shoulders shaking pathetically, and then a heartwrenching look of horrified understanding crossed his face. 

“Jon, I’m-- nothing’s going to happen to me, you don’t-- you don’t need to worry about me like that. I’m not going anywhere,” Elias said quietly. 

“But you don’t _know_ that,” Jon said plaintively, “you don’t know that. You’re just-- you’re just saying that, everyone says that, and then they disappear-- that’s the same thing mom told me, you know that? She said, ‘oh, it’s just a routine surgery, you don’t need to worry about me, I’ll be fine.’ Well, she _lied,_ and left me with grandma. And she said, ‘oh, I’m just going to run a few errands, I’ll be right back,’ and she _lied._ You’re just saying that. You’re lying,” Jon insisted, furious and exhausted and on the verge of tears. 

_I think you need to talk to him,_ Georgie had said when last they spoke. Jon almost could have laughed at himself. Surely this was not what she had meant. He was doing it all wrong, and for a moment he almost hated himself for that. 

Almost. Because in the next moment, Elias did something very peculiar, which is that he frowned at him and said, “even if I _do_ die, I’m just going to haunt you, you know. Come back as a ghost. Unfinished business and all that.” 

Jon… stared back at him, dumbfounded. 

“Wh… What on _earth_ is that supposed to mean?” is what he ended up saying. 

“Oh, what-- you think it’s going to be that easy to get rid of me?” Elias said flatly. “You’re stuck with me. I’m not going anywhere, whether you like it or not. That’s not just a promise, Jon, that is a threat.” 

He-- he said it with such a straight face, is the thing. 

But then after a long beat of silence, the corners of Elias’s mouth turned up just barely, cracking a smile, and-- and he couldn’t help it. Jon started to laugh, a hysterical, frazzled thing, and Elias stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him, and then his laughter abruptly twisted itself into a wretched little sniffle. 

Then Jon was crying, awful, shuddering sobs wrenching themselves free from his lungs. Years and years’ worth of fear and hurt and grief seized him all at once. Elias hugged him as fiercely as he dared without crushing Jon’s ribs, like he was afraid he might have never gotten the chance to do it again. 

“I’ve got you,” Elias murmured, his own voice shaky. “I’m not going anywhere, Jon, I _promise_ you I’m not going anywhere. It’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” he said. 

Jon didn’t have any words left to say to that. He just cried and cried until he couldn’t anymore, until at length he quieted to shivers and faint sniffling. 

Things… would start to get better, after that. It wouldn’t be an easy process in the slightest, but over time his fear and paranoia would slowly begin to subside. Eventually he would start to heal, allow himself to trust in promises and stability and believe that he was allowed to live his life without waiting for disaster to strike, to let his guard down and feel safe. 

In the immediate present of that moment, though, all Jon could do was focus on taking deep breath after deep breath, and Elias did not let go of him until he was ready to be let go of, and that was as good a start as any. That mattered to him. That was good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …And then Jon went to therapy, probably. 
> 
> In all seriousness-- I have worked very hard on this chapter and I am so, so proud of it, this one really means a lot to me and I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. I know it’s a long one, too, but oh well. I really just… wanted to do some justice to Jon’s trauma in this fic. 
> 
> Huge shout out to my partner in crime Librius for all their support and also for telling me to stop going ham on the italics in this chapter. Until next time.


	12. Chapter 12

They were not able to make it down into the tunnels the day after the four of them had found Jane’s backpack and consequently discovered the worms. Tim had mumbled something about owing Danny a ride somewhere after school that day, and Sasha had cited her need to actually catch up on all the work she’d been putting off in favor of throwing herself into their investigation of Jane’s disappearance. 

In truth, it was likely that they were all still shaken and unnerved by what they’d encountered and very much in need of a break, even if they couldn’t properly afford to delay confronting it for much longer. There was only so much they could take. 

There was only so much Martin could take as well, he thought bitterly to himself as he set his feet in the direction of Jon’s house and briskly began to walk. But he didn’t even have a good _reason_ to feel as drained as he did, and that was the part that stung the most. 

It was nothing so noble and important as trying to uncover the mysterious fate of a missing classmate that pushed him so close to the breaking point as he was. It wasn’t even the understandable horror and unease felt towards the wet, writhing worms they’d encountered that was the final straw for him. 

No, it had to be home, didn’t it? It had to be something as selfish and unimportant as this that made Martin grit his teeth and say _I can’t take this anymore, I can’t handle this right now._ He was so tired. He was so tired of being tired, but he should have been _used_ to it. He sighed. 

Martin’s day to day routine was a simple, formulaic thing, something honed down to a science from years of trial and error and having to adapt. 

He awoke on school day mornings at such a time that only gave him just long enough to haul himself out of bed, get dressed, sling his backpack over his shoulder and hurry out the door to catch the bus; any earlier and he would have to actually spend _time_ there in the morning, and that was the last place he wanted to spend his first conscious minutes in if he could help it. 

After school he set aside about an hour or so to do whatever he needed to do to keep their disaster of a house running and to check on his mother. For him, on most days, this generally involved first bringing something to eat up to her room and leaving it for her as quietly as he could, and then immediately making himself scarce if he could get away with it. Then he would go back to the kitchen and try to tackle the dishes, or the laundry, or whatever chore was the most desperately in need of being done, because it was always something. He could never seem to get everything under control for long, no matter how hard he worked himself or how long he sacrificed trying. He had long since accepted that in this house, constant damage control was all he could do. An hour, sometimes an hour and a half if he was in the middle of something, and then most of the time he would force himself to step back and disengage-- then he would head out, and, if he was lucky, his mother wouldn’t even have to register the fact that Martin had been home at all. 

On weekends he would generally set aside one day solely for himself and one day solely for the house. For the former he would usually spend as much of the day at Jon’s house as he could get away with. For the latter he would get up first thing in the morning and make a list of any errands that had to be run, because of course his mother was rarely feeling well enough to do them herself nowadays, and even more rarely would choose to do them even if she was. If he was lucky there wouldn’t be much, but he would regularly have to make a grocery list, and then a budget, and then take the public transit down to the grocery store-- which involved quite a bit of walking as well, and usually made both his arms and legs sore as he hauled whatever they could afford back home. When he got home he would clean the kitchen as best as he could and then he would try to cook a few meals, mostly things that could be frozen or refrigerated and reheated as necessary throughout the week for his mother. He would spend a lot of the rest of that day on whatever other upkeep needed to be done that he had been putting off. What with being present for too long, he would usually not be able to avoid his mother for the whole day and so would usually have to endure a few terse conversations or pointedly being ignored. He would try to ask how she was feeling or if she was hungry or if there was anything he could help her with, which rarely ended well for him, but she was his mother and it had to be done. 

If he was _really_ in the mood to get his feelings hurt, Martin would try to bake for her on that day. Back when everything used to be more or less okay, before his father left and his mother became so unwell, she used to love to bake on her days off. Martin used to love to hang around the kitchen and watch her, and thus would often be drafted into her efforts as an extra set of hands. 

Those times were some of his only childhood memories that still mattered to him. 

He wasn’t sure why he bothered with it anymore-- maybe he was trying to recapture some of that joy, maybe he was trying to connect with her, trying to make her happy again, trying to show her that despite everything he still cared-- but, well, he had never been good at much of anything, and this was no exception. If he was lucky, very lucky, he might manage to create something completely inoffensive and blandly acceptable, rarely good but occasionally just decent enough to be beyond criticism. If he was not lucky, he would end up with a batch of cookies just a little overdone on the bottoms or a cake that was a little too dry to be enjoyable, then on a good day his mother would just shake her head and turn them away, or on a bad day she would berate him for his carelessness and for wasting ingredients and for wasting money and wasting time and generally for being a waste of space. Then he would lock himself in his room for an hour or so and try not to care, try not to let it get to him, and more often than not, he would fail miserably. 

This would inevitably progress to stressing himself out about other topics on top of all that, like the budget, or how much food they had, or the sorry state of disrepair and clutter that their house had fallen into over time. It was the dismal, depressing sort of mess that had taken years for it to get that way, and would probably take years to ever undo. It inspired such an acute sense of self-fulfilling apathy, and it felt awful just to _be_ there, surrounded by the cloying layers of bitterness and misery, every breath inhaled from air suffused with years’ worth of grief and resentment and pain. 

Martin hated that place with every ounce of his being, hated everything it meant to him. He hated the crushing weight of responsibilities that were much too big for him. He hated the halls he grew up in for the fact that so much of his youth was spent learning how to not only fend for himself but to take care of his mother, too, for the fact that Martin had all but long forgotten what it felt like to be taken care of himself. He hated feeling like a failure for not being perfect at obligations that even adults struggled with. He hated feeling like a _burden_ for not being able to live up to such standards, for daring to have needs and wants that were anything less than utterly unobtrusive and irreproachable. 

When Martin and his friends had begun to investigate the disappearance of Jane, there had been talk of how to make sure that their parents (and/or guardians) would not become suspicious, simple and plausible explanations crafted for the sake of covering the time they spent, hashing out schedules that allowed them to do what they did and still fly under the radar. Martin hadn’t given it much thought, at the time. 

It’s not like his mother would have noticed if he was gone, or so he had believed. It wasn’t like she would care if he never turned up again aside from the fact that there would be no one to clean the house and buy the groceries, and sometimes he even doubted how much she cared about _that._ And the hour or so he usually spent at home every day before immediately making himself scarce-- that was all but a worthless formality, a symbolic gesture that he was still _trying_ in a home that was already doomed and falling apart. 

He had not been expecting her to notice, really. He hadn’t planned for it at all.

All she’d said when he’d gotten home today was _where have you been lately?_

He didn’t know what about that had felt so devastating. 

Maybe it was the way that, for once, unexpectedly, there was hardly any accusation in her voice at all. It was-- it was just a question. Martin almost could have mistaken it for genuine concern, if he didn’t know any better, and something about that _hurt._ It burned in the base of his throat as he had mumbled his way through a string of half-hearted excuses and apologies, overcome with the all-too-familiar need to get _out._ It was too much. He didn’t even know _why_ it was too much. He didn’t even know why he felt so tired anymore. He kept walking, though, and as the distance between him and that house grew his head finally began to feel clear again. 

There was only one thing Martin hated more than that house. _That Place,_ he used to call it when he was younger-- the empty place where no one was. 

But he tried not to think of it anymore. He hadn’t been in That Place for a long time, and hopefully, he would never, ever see it again. 

He had Jon now, and so things were different. Ever since the day that Jon had gone into it with him-- ever since the two of them had found their way out together, something had felt… different. More solid, almost. 

Sitting there in the nurse’s office in seventh grade and helping Jon bandage up his scraped hands-- it was perhaps a strange memory to be so fond of, but he’d always held it close. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it had been the first time in far too long that anyone looked at him with a kindness so genuine in their eyes. Jon had been so afraid of _bothering_ Martin that it was almost laughable. 

_I don’t want to make you any more late for class,_ he kept saying, something shaky and grateful in his expression. _I don’t want to take up all of your time,_ he had said, which was something that no one had ever said about _Martin_ of all people before. It made him feel… normal, almost, in a way. It was-- it was hard to describe. All he knew was that Jon had looked at him like maybe he mattered to him, and in that moment, Martin finally began to stop feeling quite so _other._

Martin felt more grounded after that. He didn’t feel the pull of that place so strongly anymore, didn’t feel like he had half a foot out of step with reality anymore. There was a definite feeling of belonging now that he didn’t have before. It was the feeling that always called him home whenever things started getting bad again, and he supposed that it was the same call he was answering right now, the same feeling that guided his steps and brought him to Jon’s door. He knocked twice, solely on principle, and let himself in. The door shut behind him with a familiar creak and at last the heaviness drained out of his chest. 

He found Jon in the kitchen, standing at the sink with a sponge in hand. 

“Martin? Is that you?” said Jon, glancing over his shoulder. “Sorry, I-- I wasn’t expecting you quite yet, I should be done in a few more minutes.” 

On the counter behind him he’d laid out a dish towel and on top of it there were a number of still-damp pots and pans. His turn to do the dishes, Martin supposed. He decided to make himself useful, getting out another towel to dry them off and put them away. 

“Er, y- you don’t have to do that, it really shouldn’t take me that much longer,” Jon tried to protest. 

“That’s fine, but I’m already doing it,” said Martin, and Jon just shook his head and smiled. 

Martin didn’t mind, really. This was probably more or less the same thing he’d be doing if he were at his own house right now, anyway. But it was different this way, he thought as they fell into quiet teamwork, Jon handing him the pans as he finished cleaning them and Martin drying them off. It was… it was nice. 

In truth, it was very likely that Martin would have given up a long time ago if he had never met Jon. He would have long lost the will to care, would have already spent the last of his strength. He might have even dropped out of high school by now, really. But-- having him as a friend gave Martin something to fall back on. 

Because he always had somewhere he could _go,_ now, somewhere he could escape from the creeping despair of his own house. On a more practical, tangible side of things, it was a tremendous resource in being able to function in general; Jon’s house was a much more agreeable work environment for homework and studying, and he also knew that he was always able to _eat_ here. He wasn’t sure where along the line his presence had become something of a constant at their dinner table, but it meant that Martin was at least able to be sure that no matter how tight he and his mother’s budget became, he himself would not necessarily have to go hungry-- which allowed him to better allocate what resources he _did_ have. 

On a more personal level, though, this was just… it was where he went when he needed to feel safe, he supposed. He had always been welcomed here, and that was something that was immeasurably precious to him. 

_(Jon_ was immeasurably precious to him, strange, self-conscious, sarcastic Jon. But that was a thought best set aside for now unless Martin wanted to get even more worked up than he already was.) 

Before long they were finished, and Jon was turning off the tap and drying off his hands. “You’re here earlier than usual,” he remarked, trying to be casual. “Everything alright?” 

“Er, yeah-- just, uh, didn’t feel like being cooped up at my house,” Martin half-lied. 

Jon nodded after a moment, but he did not look very convinced. 

“Well,” he said, “I suppose now you get to be cooped up here instead. I was just going to go try to get caught up on some work, if you want to join me?” 

“That sounds nice,” said Martin. 

So they went back to Jon’s room and sat together in companionable silence as they worked on their respective homework, for a while, and it was sort of comforting in its normalcy. It was almost easy to forget that they hadn’t had as much time to do this as they usually did what with their frequent trips down into the tunnels beneath the school, or to forget that Martin was avoiding his own mother for the crime of pretending to care when normally she did not. 

“Martin,” Jon said eventually, looking up from his papers. “Are you… Are you sure you’re alright?” 

“Why do you ask?” Martin said carefully. 

Jon gave him a strange, searching look, something hesitant in his eyes. It was the kind of pinched, worried expression that Martin had always been very susceptible to, from him, something about the soft weight of his gaze making him feel the tremendous urge to spill his guts and tell him everything he was worried about until he ran out of words to name his fears. 

But Jon had always had that effect on Martin, and so he knew how to hold his tongue when he really did not want to go into it, which he didn’t, not this time. 

“I’m fine,” Martin said after a beat too long, fidgeting a little. “Um, do you want to go for a walk, actually?” 

“In this weather?” Jon said, though he was already getting up and putting his things away. 

“Oh, it’s not _that_ cold out, as long as you wear a coat it’s fine,” said Martin. It was a bit cloudy and chilly, but that was just normal autumn weather. 

“Didn’t you just walk here, anyway?” Jon said a little teasingly as they went to the living room and he pulled his jacket on. “You’d think after all the traipsing around we do in the tunnels, you’d want a _break_ from walking all the time, but if you say so…” 

“And I do say so,” Martin insisted cheerfully. 

“Then go we shall, I suppose,” Jon said, holding the door open and making a dramatic _after you_ motion that made Martin roll his eyes fondly at him as they set off. 

He had always rather liked walking as a way to clear his mind, and though the pressing need to _get away_ that he’d felt when he first left his house had gone, there was still a bit of a lingering restlessness that itched to be resolved. 

“See, it’s not that bad out, now is it?” Martin said after a little while, and Jon just gave him a playful glare. 

“I suppose,” he admitted, “though it would probably be better if my jacket wasn’t so worn out.” Jon examined the cuff of his jacket sleeve, resisting the urge to pull at the fraying threads. “I’ll probably be needing to go get a new one soon, before it gets too much colder out.” 

“Fair enough.” Martin considered for a moment. When he himself needed new clothes or shoes or whatever it happened to be, that was something he had to take care of by himself. That wasn’t really normal, though, he supposed-- not to say that anything about Jon or his living situation was particularly normal either, of course, because it very much wasn’t.

“So, just wondering, actually,” Martin said, “do you usually _tell_ Elias about that sort of thing, or do you just wait for him to like…” he made a vague hand gesture to indicate the weirdness that was Jon’s guardian. 

“...That is a good question,” Jon said. “I mean… A lot of the time it’s sort of like, either I decide I’m going to tell him I need something, and then he just already knows, or I decide I’m going to wait for him to just know it and then he doesn’t.” 

“So basically, whichever is more annoying, that’s what it’ll be.” 

“Yes, quite,” Jon grumbled. “If he’s going to be, you know, _psychic_ or whatever, he could at _least_ decide to be consistent about it. Or convenient, at least.”

“What a travesty it would be if you had to actually use your words like a human being,” Martin teased him. 

“Exactly, glad we’re on the same page,” Jon said back jokingly, and Martin laughed. 

“So, how _have_ you been doing lately?” Martin asked. “You, uh, do anything interesting lately? I-- I mean, except for the, uh-- obviously, aside from the whole tunnel thing, I mean… That is…” 

Jon smiled a little. “Aside from finding a bag full of creepy worms in the weird secret passages under our school? Yeah, actually,” he said. “Speaking of Elias, even… I think it was this last Saturday, I woke up-- oh, it was about eight or nine o’clock, I think-- and so I go into the kitchen to get something to eat. And Elias is there fixing himself another cup of coffee, and he says, ‘oh, Jon, your friend is going to be here soon.’ And then he just _leaves,_ and doesn’t elaborate,” said Jon, disgruntled. 

“Thanks, Elias, very specific,” Martin said. 

_“Exactly,_ and I absolutely had no plans except to sit inside by myself all day, so I’m thinking, what on earth is he talking about?” Jon said. “Since I knew Sasha and Tim were both busy, I knew it wasn’t going to be one of them just dropping by unannounced. And I could have sworn you’d said you were coming on Sunday, but I thought, ‘oh, well, I could be wrong, surely he must be talking about Martin, then.’ Except I’m sure you remember that you most definitely did not come over that day.” 

“Certainly not,” Martin agreed. 

“So… since I thought it was you, I didn’t worry too much about it, no big deal,” Jon continued. “Then I just went back to minding my own business and having my breakfast, and eventually there was a knock at the door. Now, really, this is the part where I should have realized the error of my assumption, because usually you’ll just come in. But I wasn’t really thinking about it, so I went to answer the door… and… lo and behold, standing on the other side of the doorway… was Gerry fucking Keay.” 

“Oh my god,” said Martin, stifling a shocked smile. 

“I was literally… standing there in my _pajamas,”_ Jon said emphatically. “I had not even _brushed_ my hair yet this morning, I’m-- I’m standing there, empty cereal bowl in hand, mortified and confused-- and Gerry pretty much goes, ‘what’s up, nerd, I’ve decided we’re going to the mall today.’”

“Oh my _god,”_ Martin said incredulously, unable to stop himself from laughing this time. “So what, he just-- he just-- shows up out of nowhere like, ‘surprise, I bet you weren’t expecting _this!’_ ”

 _“Yes,_ I really, really wasn’t!” Jon exclaimed. “So I’m like, ‘Gerry, what the hell? I’m not even dressed, I wasn’t even planning on going anywhere, I can’t go out like this,’ and he’s like, ‘oh, that’s fine, I’ll just _wait,’_ and then-- he just-- _walks inside_ and sits himself down on my couch! And I’m-- just-- _huh??”_

“Unbelievable,” Martin said with amusement. “That is really just _spectacularly_ weird, what did you-- what did you _do?_ ” 

“I mean-- I just went back to my room and got ready, it’s not like he gave me any other choice. What was I supposed to do, tell him to get lost because I already had plans to stay in my room all day and do nothing? As if that would have stopped him. Gerry is-- he’s the kind of person who will just go, ‘we’re doing this now,’ and all I can do is say, ‘right, I guess we are, then,’” Jon huffed, trying and failing not to smile. 

“Gerry seems… interesting,” Martin said, grinning back. “I don’t really see him much, myself, but he seems nice, if not a little bit, uh-- intimidating?” 

“Oh, Gerry is great,” Jon agreed, shaking his head fondly. “We did have fun, actually, aside from the weird morning it was quite nice. He dragged me to the Hot Topic, though. We looked at pins for ages but then he accidentally stabbed himself with one? So we decided to, uh, leave,” he said. “Then after that we went to the food court and he got me to try bubble tea-- have you ever had it?” 

“No, I haven’t, is it good?” Martin asked. 

“It’s-- interesting?” Jon decided. “I’ll have to try it again sometime, I think. But yeah, that was my weekend.” 

“That sounds like fun,” Martin said a little softly. 

They lapsed into quiet for a bit, having made their way roughly halfway around the block, and were now circling back. Martin’s feet were finally beginning to tire, but his mood had improved enough that he couldn’t find it in himself to mind. 

“I should have brought gloves,” Jon complained eventually. 

“Yeah?” Martin said, amused. 

“Oh, don’t give me that tone, it’s _cold,”_ Jon groused, which only made Martin smile more. “My hands are freezing,” he said. 

“Really? Mine aren’t,” Martin said. 

Then Martin did something very impulsive and stupid, which was that he simply reached over and took Jon’s hand in his. 

His brain caught up to him half a second later, and he promptly short-circuited. 

“I-- wait- wait a minute, oh my god-- that was weird, sorry, I shouldn’t--” Martin sputtered, trying to withdraw his hand. But-- unfortunately and miraculously-- Jon was quicker to react than Martin, and immediately he wrapped his fingers tightly around Martin’s hand and refused to give. 

“Oh, you weren’t kidding, how are you still this warm??” Jon said, sounding almost scandalized. 

“Uhhh _hhh,”_ Martin said intelligently, frozen like a deer in headlights. His face was rapidly heating up. 

“I’m keeping this,” Jon decided simply, indicating Martin’s hand. 

“That’s, uh,” Martin fumbled, “yeah. I mean-- sure, that’s fine, o- obviously, um, I--?” 

Jon rolled his eyes at him. _“Really,_ Martin, I promise I don’t think it’s that weird, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said. 

“Y- You don’t?” Martin nearly squeaked, heart leaping to his throat. 

“No, I think at this point, I’ve long become immune to things like that just by virtue of knowing Sasha,” Jon said with an amused shake of his head. 

Which… Martin did know that Sasha had always tended to be very casual about that sort of thing with her friends. She was not sparing with hugs and indeed, he had actually seen her hold Jon’s or Tim’s hand before like it was nothing, had even been the recipient of such gestures himself. But-- in so far as he had meant anything at all by the ill-thought-out gesture-- that had not really been what he’d meant. Martin couldn’t tell if he was more relieved or disappointed, but-- that was-- that was fine, he decided. 

“Unless you’ve changed your mind about letting me leech all the heat from your hand,” Jon said teasingly. His hand _was_ cold, and now that the shock of his own recklessness had worn off, Martin could feel the chill of Jon’s fingers bite into his hand. 

There was something nonsensically, unbearably endearing about it. Martin’s dumb heart gave a predictable little twist in his chest and he quickly shook his head. 

“N- No, this is just fine,” Martin said. 

“Good,” said Jon warmly, and his smug little grin made Martin ache with fondness for him. 

They didn’t let go of each other the rest of the way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I hope the first half of this wasn’t too heavy or anything. I wanted to spend a little more time with Martin in this chapter … a lot of the details for his whole crummy living situation and how that plays into his relationship with Jon and Jon’s home, I have based on a relationship I used to have with someone. Like I don’t… I don’t know what exactly it looks like inside Martin’s house in this, but I know what it feels like to _be_ in there. (Speaking of projecting, though, don’t mind me blatantly giving Jon and Gerry my own mall experiences. They deserve nice things.)
> 
> Furthermore, even though it’s part of his original real backstory I obviously can’t have Martin drop out of high school in this fic because then it would be,, a pretty bad high school au I think? Then it would just be a teen au. Can’t have that. Guess Martin will have to be loved and supported instead :) !


	13. Chapter 13

When Elias pulled into the driveway, Jon and Martin were making their way up to the front door. Hand in hand, no less, although the sound of the car door shutting startled Martin and caused him to quickly retract his hand from Jon’s, a fact that Elias politely pretended not to notice. 

“Hi, Elias,” greeted Jon with a wave. “You’re home early.”

“Good afternoon,” said Elias. “What are you boys doing out and about?” 

“Oh-- Martin wanted to go for a walk, we just got back,” said Jon, holding the door open for the other two, Martin quickly ducking inside. 

“In this weather?” Elias said. 

“That’s exactly what Jon said,” Martin shook his head. “I swear, it’s not that bad. I go for walks in colder temperatures than this all the time, I don’t know what you guys are talking about.” 

Jon shot Martin a playful glare for a moment before turning back to face him, fiddling with his sleeve. “By the way, Elias--” he began. 

“--Your jacket, you need a new one,” Elias finished for him. “I’ll take you to the store sometime this weekend, yes.” 

“Er-- right, thank you,” Jon said. 

When they thought he wasn’t looking, Jon shot Martin an exasperated look as if to say, _you see? You see the weirdness I put up with?,_ which Elias also politely ignored. 

“How are you two doing, hm?” Elias asked. 

“Oh, just fine,” Jon said. “I got the dishes done already. Most of my homework, too.” 

“That’s good. And you, Martin?” 

Martin glanced at Jon. “I’m-- I’m good, yeah,” he said, smiling faintly. _Better, now,_ went unspoken, but Jon still returned his smile. 

“Excellent,” said Elias pleasantly. “Well, then, I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.”

“Right, don’t work too hard,” Jon said a little admonishingly, and Elias only hummed noncommittally in reply. 

The idea was that he was going to head up to his study and try to get a few things done. Unfortunately, this day had other plans for him. He did not even manage ten minutes of anything productive before the phone rang with a number bearing no caller ID. 

He reached to answer it almost automatically, assuming it would probably be work-related, which he was soon to discover was not the case. There was an odd, faintly garbled quality to the audio on the other end of the call, an underlying sort of high-pitched whine that immediately set Elias on edge. 

Of course, The Beholding informed him of his mistake half a step before either of them could say anything, and so Elias’s voice came out in a hiss as he answered. 

“Peter,” he said acidly. 

“Hello, Elias,” Peter greeted cheerfully. 

_(I really should just hang up,_ he thought to himself, because he really, _really_ should have known better by now. But he didn’t, because he never seemed to learn his lesson.)

“To what do I owe the-- hm-- tremendous displeasure of this call?” Elias asked coldly. 

“Oh, come now, Elias, there’s no need to be so--” 

“Please just get to the point,” Elias said firmly. _“Why_ are you bothering me this time, and what do you want-- better yet, give me one good reason I should waste my time at all.” 

There was a beat of silence on the other end as Peter considered his tone and reassessed his strategy. 

“Just… wanted to hear your voice again,” Peter said with a deceptive level of friendliness. “That’s all.” 

The remark, of course, sank in with the lethal accuracy of a knife. It made him wince with the warped honesty of it, and Elias had to pause for a moment to regain his composure. 

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, saying something like that,” he retorted after what they both knew was a beat too long. 

“Is it really such a crime to want to hear the voice of the love of my life?” Peter said congenially, emboldened. 

“You-- _really_ should be more embarrassed to say that,” Elias grumbled. 

“What makes you say that?”

“I just don’t think you should get to be so unashamed to call your ex-husband _the love of your life,_ that’s just sad. Creepy, really.”

“Oh, I disagree,” said Peter breezily, with a smugness that grated on Elias’s nerves. “Besides, I certainly don’t see you dating, either, so…” 

Elias decided not to comment on the fact that the last time he so much as went for coffee with another guy, he _‘disappeared under mysterious circumstances’_ less than a week later. 

“You don’t see me at _all,_ if I can help it,” is what Elias eventually said. 

“Oh, yeah?” Peter said, amused. “Elias, not wanting to be seen? Isn’t that funny. Tell me, what ever would your precious Eye think of that?” 

Elias frowned. “...Is that supposed to be a joke?” 

“Ah, so you _do_ understand humor.” 

“That’s not-- no, it’s a stupid joke, is what I’m saying. That’s just-- an easy jab, and it’s not even all that funny-- what I’m _saying_ is that you’re ridiculous and insufferable,” Elias said crossly. 

“I do so resent the implication that I could ever be the more insufferable of the two of us,” Peter said lightly. 

“That isn’t-- alright,” Elias made himself take a deep breath. “That isn’t the point. I mean, you can’t just-- not everything is _about_ that, you understand, right? If I were to say, ‘Peter, you and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things,’ that isn’t-- that hardly qualifies as a _joke._ A cheap pun, at best.”

“Well, first of all, I cannot possibly see _eye to eye_ with you on _anything_ due to the fact that you have far too many of them for me to look into at once,” Peter said in a facetiously polite tone. 

“That’s… not…” Elias fumbled. “N- Not when I’m awake.” 

“Usually,” Peter corrected. 

Elias was caught somewhat off guard, as this was usually something that Peter did not want to talk about, the incident that led to the end of their relationship. 

He was quickly finding that he himself did not want to talk about it, either. 

“Is that what this is about?” Elias said finally. “Oh, just checking up on your favorite monster-- is that what this is?” He asked accusingly, because he knew Peter still believed that about him. 

“I suppose you could call it that, sure. You know, on the topic of _seeing_ you, actually,” Peter said with a sharp-edged levity, “I _do_ still see you in my nightmares, anyway. Quite frequently, at times, even.” 

“...I am aware,” Elias said, gritting his teeth. “I don’t control it.”

“Oh, you ‘don’t control it,’” Peter repeated crossly. “You sure about that?” 

“No, I don’t _control_ it, you think I _want--_ I don’t have any more say over it than you do!” Elias said forcefully. _“Really,_ Peter. You brought this upon yourself.” 

“And you’re trying to tell me you’re, what, just an unwilling tool, is that it?” Peter asked. “You want me to accept that this is all my fault, or whatever? Am I supposed to say sorry? Like that would change anything now?” 

“It won’t,” Elias said darkly. 

“That _is_ the point I was trying to make,” Peter said exasperatedly. “So, what-- that’s just how it’s going to be forever, then? Not a thing either of us can do about it-- I’m just supposed to accept that?”

“Ah, so _this_ is what you’re really calling about,” Elias said. “I see. You really think I have all the answers, let alone any you’d want to hear at all?” 

“Quite frankly, _yes,_ and I don’t think that’s really so terrible of me to wonder about,” said Peter crossly. 

“How many times do I have to tell you I’ve nothing more to say to you on the matter??” Elias said. “Despite whatever you believe, I really don’t like it either. But actions have _consequences,_ Peter, and this is ours.” 

There was a momentary beat of quiet as Peter considered. 

_“Is_ it ours? Seems rather like I’m the one who has to bear the brunt of it,” Peter said. 

“Well, I suppose you shouldn’t have angered my master, then,” Elias said simply, allowing himself the momentary victory of feeling smug about it. 

“Oh, I’ve _angered your master,_ now, is that so?” Peter said derisively. 

“Don’t you dare act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” said Elias, bristling. 

“Of course I _know_ what you’re talking about. I just think it’s funny, seeing how deluded you still are about it all. You really think you deserve to feel like a victim?”

 _“Excuse_ me??” Elias said angrily. 

“Oh, don’t pity yourself, Elias. In the end, your suffering means just the same as anyone else’s. You’re no better than me.” Peter gave a short, bitter laugh. “As if I would really believe that this is all because I’ve ‘angered your master’-- tell me, do you really believe your pain actually _matters_ that much to it?” asked Peter coldly. 

There was a moment of stunned silence on Elias’s end, and then his long-buried feelings of pain and grief and fury began to well up, against his will and despite the best of his efforts. The remark cut him far too deeply, and his blood boiled in outcry as his anger seized him. 

“It should have mattered to _you!!!”_ Elias exclaimed vehemently, nearly choking on the intensity of his sudden rage. 

_Do you really believe your pain actually matters that much to it?_

The servants of the Entities had been asking themselves questions not wholly unlike that for as long as they have _existed._ For eons they had begged and pleaded with powers far too great and terrible for their minds to ever comprehend, beseeching them to answer their curses and their horrible prayers-- _do we matter to you? Is this what you want? Do you see us?_

In the end, all the awful push-and-pull and the mind games of their relationship had only resulted in this, this awful web of mistakes and collateral damage that’d ultimately left Elias dangling by a thread. So wrapped up in it all as he was, he hadn’t even seen the shape of it until it was nearly much too late, until it nearly unravelled him. 

Peter had come very, _very_ close to unravelling him. 

How utterly forsaken, how devastatingly near to the edge of unfeeling oblivion do you have to _be--_ how Lonely do you have to become for the only thing to take note of your suffering to be an unfathomable eldritch terror god of Watching and Knowing and not interfering? 

How powerlessly isolated do you have to become for such a being to be the only thing able or willing to intervene on your behalf at all? 

It hurt, and it never, never seemed to fully stop hurting. Even now the Watcher’s static rose in his ears, as if in response to his fury, answering his anguish with its awful buzzing song. Elias shuddered with strain as he fought to control it. 

“It should have _mattered_ to you,” Elias repeated, his voice shaking. “But no, because it was something you could _use--”_

“Oh, as if I’m the only one who--” Peter started.

“Will you just be _quiet!!”_ Elias snapped, tongue buzzing with the static force of it despite his efforts, and Peter fell silent. “I know, I know, I’m _aware--_ we’re both just destructive fools, tied up with forces we’ll never understand-- but that doesn’t change the fact that it should have _mattered_ to you that you were destroying me! _I_ should have mattered to you!” 

“Elias, I--” 

“How _dare_ you ask something like that of me??” Elias insisted. “You’ve _lost,_ Peter-- I don’t have time for our games anymore!” 

“Elias,” Peter interjected firmly. “You’ve always mattered to me. Still do, o- or I wouldn’t even be calling. You _do_ matter to me.” 

Elias forced himself to take a deep, controlled breath. 

“You’re not even sorry, are you?” Elias said in a low tone. “Despite everything, you have no remorse except in that you failed.” 

“I… did what I felt had to be done, yes,” Peter said, guarded. “I _had_ to take measures to separate you from, er, well… Y- You must understand…” 

“No, I rather think I’ve heard enough, actually,” Elias said. “I’d tell you not to call me again, but that hasn’t worked very well for me the last, oh, two dozen or so times, now has it? You never learn. Neither of us do.” 

“W- Wait, I-- Elias--”

“I really do despise you,” Elias said, weariness dulling the sharp edge of his vitriol. “For whatever it’s worth, I will say it once more: I _never_ want to hear from you again.” 

With that, he hung up. 

There was a long moment of stifling silence, and Elias forced himself to take deep breath after deep breath. 

He put his head in his hands and sighed heavily, frustrated, emptiness creeping into his chest as his anger began to die. It left him hollow and listless, apathy and exhaustion beginning to claw dully at his insides. 

It was, of course, a feeling he was painfully, intimately familiar with after everything that had transpired between himself and Peter. It was a long-festering sense of isolation that felt almost crushingly, disgustingly _right_ in its familiarity if he wasn’t consciously on guard against its creeping influence. The room pressed in on him, and heaviness spilled into his lungs like a cloying mist with every breath, threatening to envelop him, entomb him, as it had for what felt like a very long time. 

But although his anger was quick to subside, the low buzzing hum in his ears was insistent and lingering, wrapping itself around the edges of his mind. That, too, was familiar. Soothing, almost. It should not have felt as comforting to him as it did, perhaps, not as it resolved itself into a prickling on the back of his neck: the feeling of being watched, or, in this case, the feeling of being imminently seen.

 _Jon and Martin are approaching,_ breathed the little static whisper of his mind, as it was wont to do. 

Elias awkwardly tried to compose himself. Now he heard the sound of their footsteps ascending, the indistinct murmur of their chattering voices growing clearer, and then the door to his study swung open. 

“Hi, Elias,” said Martin with an awkward smile as he stepped inside, shuffling his feet nervously. Jon marched in after him with significantly more surety, much more bold in his intrusion. 

“We’ve come to bother you,” Jon announced. Martin glared playfully at him and pushed his shoulder with his free hand; in the other, he held a mug, slightly chipped with age around the rim. 

“We were just making some tea,” Martin explained, “and, er, we thought you might like some, too, so we…” 

“Don’t listen to him, there is no ‘we,’” Jon said, walking up to one of Elias’s bookshelves. _“He_ wanted to be nice, I just came along to make a nuisance of myself.” He plucked a book from the shelf. 

“Now, you put that back where you found it,” Elias protested automatically, blinking a little with confusion as Martin handed him the mug. He accepted it blankly, and though Martin did not give any further explanation as to his offering, his internal sense of Knowing politely informed him that it was a lavender earl gray that was slightly oversteeped, and slightly oversweetened, though neither to intolerable extremes. 

Jon inspected the cover of his stolen tome and flipped through the pages briefly. It was just a dusty old novel selected at random, or so he thought. Upon further consideration, however, Elias realized he might’ve accidentally swiped that particular book from the Sims’ house at one point ages ago. “Sure, definitely, I’ll put it back,” Jon said.“...When I’m done reading it myself.” 

“If that ends up on your shelf and not mine, I _will_ know,” Elias groused, already recognizing that there was little point in further argument. In response, Jon just grinned at him. Elias shook his head in exasperation, but returned his smile with begrudging fondness nonetheless. 

(It was only fair, he supposed, that the book eventually ended up in his hands. Fitting, really.) 

“Anyway, that’s all we, uh, came for, so we’ll be going now,” said Martin, directing the last part to Jon a little chidingly. 

“Er-- right, then,” Elias mumbled. “Th- thank you, Martin.” 

“No problem,” Martin replied. 

“See you later,” said Jon as he turned to leave, and Elias nodded blankly in response, still feeling somewhat bewildered by the whole interaction. 

But… Martin hesitated in the doorway for another moment, looking troubled. 

“Is there… something else you needed?” Elias said awkwardly. 

Martin glanced around the room nervously. He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again, uncertain. 

When his gaze returned to Elias, there was something else in it. 

_He Knows,_ whispered The Beholding in Elias’s mind, making him freeze. 

“I… I think you really should, maybe, o- open a window, since it’s so-- er, s- stuffy in here?” said Martin in an odd, uncertain tone. 

Elias arched an eyebrow at him in confusion, but Martin just kept looking at him with such a peculiar expression, like he was willing him to understand. “That is, uh… Sometimes it can help, with the, um…” Martin made a wide gesture, seemingly indicating the room. “I-- I mean, sometimes it- it’ll make it worse, but that’s-- uh, it’s not foggy outside or anything right now, and it should be fine, so… so that usually seems to help, getting a bit of fresh air. You know, to clear your head a bit. Before it gets too, uh, o- overwhelming. That’s-- well, in my experience, I mean, that should… help.” 

_He Knows,_ Elias’s mind repeated, fainter this time. _He does not understand, but he knows._

“Or at least come downstairs,” Martin continued, a little more firmly this time. _Better not to be by yourself_ went unspoken, but it was an easy enough thing to read. 

“I… see,” Elias said slowly, turning the revelation over in his mind. “I-- I will. In a moment, I will.” 

“Alright,” said Martin, finally seeming satisfied. “I suppose I’ll be going then.” Elias nodded, and Martin turned to leave. 

“Martin,” said Elias hesitantly. “Thank you again, for… for the tea, that is. That was very, er… very thoughtful of you.” 

Martin smiled. “Yeah, of course. Glad to help,” he said, and closed the door behind him quietly as he left. 

Elias stared down at the mug in his hands for another moment, and considered. 

He was aware of the fact that Martin, too, bore the mark of The Lonely. Elias generally tried _not_ to be aware of such things if he could help it, at least in regards to people he had to interact with regularly, because he found that people tended not to react well to being Seen in such a manner. Of course, oftentimes the Knowing would slip through the cracks regardless of whether he wanted it or not. 

That had been something else, though. It did not quite have so much to do with any knowledge seen through his master’s gaze as it did with the fact that when Jon had first introduced his new friend so many years ago, there had been something ever so slightly _off_ about Martin. Something about the way he held himself, perhaps, or maybe it was something in his voice, something uncertain and careful and ever so slightly faint as though from disuse. 

It was, he supposed, that at the time the final dying remnants of The Lonely’s embrace had still clung to Martin in places, like cloying, mist-laden cobwebs yet to be brushed away. It was just that there had been a certain sense of quiet recognition Elias had felt about it. 

He had never even considered the possibility that such a recognition might be applicable in reverse. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that. 

But, he thought as he contemplated the tea Martin brought him and the empty spot left on his bookshelf due to Jon absconding with yet another of his books, that was… that was alright. There was something almost sort of nice about it all the same. He shook his head a little, smiling despite himself and exhaling a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. 

They were good kids with good intentions, and that had to count for something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~So have yall been enjoying this non worm-focused interlude? :) well :)~~
> 
> I started thinking about Martin and the Lonely and then I started thinking about Elias and the Lonely and then I couldn’t _stop_ thinking about it until this chapter was complete. _Eventually_ we’ll be seeing a bit more of Peter (unfortunately?), and going into what happened between them, but for now at least it’s been kinda interesting hearing from someone who actually knows what’s going on with the Entities and whatnot.


	14. Chapter 14

“Jon, I think you need to see this,” said Sasha. 

Another day, another trip down into the tunnels. They’d put this off yesterday and they could hardly afford to do it again, so down they went once more, into the depths. 

“Well, what… what is it?” Martin eventually spoke up when Jon remained quiet as the other three hesitantly approached. “What is that? What does it say?”

The moment they set foot back in these strange corridors, Jon had felt something strange-- a creeping awareness, a sort of pull that dragged his feet back towards the site of their previous discovery, the room with the backpack and the worms. They’d been… nervous, to put it gently, hesitant to open that same door lest they encounter those silvery creatures again. 

But the room was nearly empty this time, save for this: a letter, folded up on the desk. 

“It’s… a note,” Sasha said. “Jon, it-- it has your name on it.” 

Of course it did. Jon took a quick breath and exhaled, uneasy. Of course it would have to be for him. 

“Alright,” Jon said reluctantly. “Let’s see it, then.” His stomach gave a nervous twist as Sasha gingerly picked up the letter and handed it over. It was slightly damp, discolored in spots, which nearly made Jon recoil a little in distaste, but he accepted it nonetheless. 

“You gonna read it to us, or…?” Tim asked. 

“I suppose I’d better,” Jon agreed after a beat. “Let’s see what she has to say to us, then, shall we?” He unfolded the paper. “It says… oh.” 

His eyes fell upon the topmost line, and he started to have second thoughts. 

“Is it-- is it bad?” Martin asked hesitantly. 

“I…” Jon mumbled. “L- Let me read it through first, actually. See what I’m dealing with, and then I’ll read it for you.”

“That seems fair,” Sasha said, so Jon steeled himself once again and began to read the letter. 

_Dearest Jonathan, my final and only friend,_

_Allow me to begin with firstly a word of congratulations and secondly a word of warning._

_I must confess that I did not anticipate you getting nearly as far as you have. Your persistence and dedication have served you well, it seems, at least in so far as you’ve yet to find yourself well and truly lost in the dark. I might have expected you and your lot to have become disoriented and confused, gone astray or even gone mad within these twisting walls by this point, or else failing, to have grown overwhelmed and given up the ghost by now. Alas, even now your fragile sight grows stronger, and perhaps the fault is mine for not properly anticipating this… intrusion._

_Because I have warned you once, Jon. My final request to you was simply that you not interfere. And yet, here you are._

_Thus, as a reward and as a threat, I am writing to you to lay plain my intentions._

_Make no mistake, my dear: I will lay waste to this wretched place, to those fools who sit cocooned in the false safety of their offices and their paperwork, paying no heed to the terrible droning song of the Hive. I shall teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget-- that is, if I deign to spare their miserable lives at all. I will bring forth the full weight of the Hive’s fury, and I will crush anyone who dares to stand in my way, no matter the collateral._

_I tell you this, Jon, because I know there is nothing you can do to save your pathetic school. I tell you this because I know no one will believe you._

_I do not care if you choose to flee this place the moment you finish your reading and cry wolf to the ignorant buffoons in charge. By all means, indeed, sound the alarm; scream it at the top of your lungs, sing this song of terror until your voice gives way to despair as it falls upon deaf ears. Maybe then at last you will begin to understand me, for I have tried much the very same myself to no avail. In the end all of my kicking and screaming and squirming only led me to realize that the very melody I tried in vain to detest was calling to me, sticky and sweet and beautiful in all its horror. Perhaps it had always been calling to me. Perhaps I had simply been too afraid to listen close. But I hear it now._

_Part of me wishes that you could be made to hear it, too. How I long to make you understand, my dear Jonathan; oh, how I long to show you the beauty of this abhorrent song as well, show you what it means to belong to the Hive, to truly_ **_belong._ ** _I wish so dearly to teach you to sing and sing until your vocal chords succumb to the decay, until there is no more room in your rotted throat with which to cry out. But, alas, you do not belong to us. You can never understand, and I pity you for that._

_Even so… I must admit that you have truly done as much as you can. Only you, Jon, you and yours-- you alone have tried. Knowing what you are, now, I’ve come to realize enough about the true nature of things to appreciate the gesture at the very least, for what it means for one of your kind to fight so hard to understand. From all that remains of the corpse of my worm-rotten heart, I thank you for that much._

_You’re trying to prevent poor Jane from becoming a mystery, aren’t you?_

_Of course, I cannot allow you to maintain any delusions of heroism about this situation. There will be no noble triumph for you here, you shall have no daring tale of peril and rescue. Do not believe for an instant that you have the power to stop The Crawling Rot. I will not allow it, and you will not take away from me what I have become. Even now, with my hands beginning to weaken as I pen these final words I gift to you, my body grows ever more hollowed out and festering by the moment. I do not know why the Hive chose me, but it did. And I think that it always had._

_I will not warn you again, but consider this my final parting gift, offered up out of a sense of bitter gratitude and sentimentality towards your wasted attempts to seek justice for the human I used to be. Out of affection for our friendship, Jon, although distantly I fear you saw it not the same as I once did._

_In a week’s time, this school will lay in ruins. When that day comes, I highly suggest you feign illness, stay home, or else skip your classes and hide away somewhere safe, whatever it takes to be absent upon the day of reckoning. Whether you choose to heed my warning is up to you, of course. Perhaps you will wish to join me. If that is the case, I may be willing to reconsider my offer to teach you to sing the song of The Corruption. Yes, I do believe I could make an exception for you, dear Jon, though deep in my bones I already know that you will refuse._

_Perhaps that is for the best._

_With love,_

_The Entity Formerly Known as Jane Prentiss_

Jon’s hands were shaking. He wanted to faint. He wanted to throw up. 

“Jon…?” Martin said carefully, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Jon, are you okay? You’re-- trembling.” 

“What did she say?” Tim asked. “Did she threaten you or something? I’ll-- I’ll kick her ass if she did,” he offered. 

“Worse than that,” Jon croaked. He laughed a little, something short and dark and bitter. “Much, much worse than that.” 

“Jon…” Sasha said uncertainly, torn between worry for her friend and deep-rooted dread for whatever situation they had found themselves in. “What did she… What does the letter say?” 

“I… can’t… I c- can’t look at this anymore,” Jon said weakly. He held the letter out, and Sasha took it from him. “I know I said I’d read it for you, but I-- I don’t want to read it again. I can’t.”

Sasha looked at the letter with great concern. “Do you want me to do it for you? I can read it, if-- if that’s alright.” 

“Please,” Jon said defeatedly. 

So she did. And she stumbled on every overfamiliar, sickly-sweet endearment, wavered over every promise of destruction, every dreamy, bittersweet exultation of infestation and rot. But she read it through to the end nonetheless. 

The silence in the chamber was palpable as Jon’s friends turned the words of the note over in their heads. 

Tim was the first to speak. “Okay, wh… what the _fuck,”_ is what he said, eventually. “What the fuck is her problem, saying something like that to you?” 

Jon wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry. He gave Tim a shaky, unsteady look, and Tim scooped him up in a hug by way of reply. 

“That is so messed up, she can’t get away with that,” Tim murmured after a moment. “She’s gonna pay for this. Jesus. Oh, we are _so_ not going to let her go through with any of this.” 

“What are we going to _do?”_ Martin mumbled after a moment. “I mean, we-- we have to stop her. We have to. Obviously.” 

“We are _going_ to stop her,” Tim said vehemently, releasing Jon. 

“How are we going to do that?” Sasha said quietly. 

Jon took a deep breath. “We’ll… we’ll find a way. Obviously, we’ll have to, we have no other choice.” He put his hands to his temples. “A week, she said. We still have a week. We’ll have to find her, seek her out and take her down before then, o- or…” 

Martin fidgeted anxiously. “I mean, we probably shouldn’t think too much about that, should we,” he said with a nervous little laugh. 

“If it gets to that point,” he said, “we’ll-- I mean-- we’ll have to tell Elias, of course. Right?” Jon said hesitantly. 

He considered Jane’s letter. _By all means, sound the alarm,_ she had written, _sing this song of terror until your voice gives way to despair as it falls upon deaf ears._

“She thinks he’s not going to believe me,” Jon said. 

“And… will he?” asked Sasha. 

“Of course he will,” Jon insisted immediately. Jane had clearly misjudged them, surely. “Obviously, he would, I can’t imagine… I…” 

Against his will, an awful little flicker of doubt rose up inside him. He thought of the way that everyone else had reacted to the disappearance of Jane-- which was to say, the way they hadn’t reacted at all, how he had been unwilling to test if that particular side effect extended to his guardian as well. Jane had been so sure that even if Jon immediately marched up to the main office and tried to explain the situation with the hidden tunnels and the threat of infestation to the office staff, that he would not be believed. She had been so smugly certain of that precisely because she _had_ tried to warn them once before, to no avail; Jon _remembered_ her panic and frustration and despair as her claims were dismissed as paranoia. Even Jon, too, had been just shy of dismissing them himself, for a time. 

Surely, though, this was different-- right? This was serious. Jon _knew_ it was serious. But then, so had Jane. He could-- he could show them the letter. They would _have_ to believe that much, he reasoned… but… the very idea that they might still refuse to take him seriously, as they had with Jane-- it was dizzying. 

He thought back to the one time he had hesitantly tried to call attention to Jane’s concerns. 

_Oh, that,_ Elias had said with distaste as he had looked down distractedly at his desk. Believing her declarations of an unseen infestation to be the product of Jane’s own paranoid mind, he had simply said, _there’s not much we can do to follow up on such a thing. Honestly, Jon, I would not suggest you get involved._

And he _had_ gotten involved. Of course he had. He’d failed to heed even that warning. Now, surrounded by the unforgiving stone walls of these labyrinthian tunnels, he had to ask himself if they weren’t just making another terrible mistake, if they had ever learned their lesson at all. He thought about the last time they’d gotten involved with something like this, he thought about scars and endings and promises. _I am begging you, you could have been killed,_ his guardian had said to him then. _You can’t do this anymore,_ he had said, and Jon, battered and weary, had made him a promise. 

_We won’t,_ Jon had lied to him. Here they were, in over their heads again. Jon wavered. 

_I tell you this because I know no one will believe you,_ Jane had written. 

But, despite everything… she was wrong about that. 

(She _had_ to be wrong about that.) 

“He _will_ listen to me,” Jon insisted once again, more certain this time. “If it comes to that. He’ll have to.” 

“He’ll be mad, though, won’t he?” Martin pointed out hesitantly. 

“Y- Yes, and I would really prefer to handle this ourselves, if we can. I really don’t want it to come to that. But as a last resort, I mean,” said Jon. “I think she’s misjudged us. We’re not quite as powerless and alone as she wants us to believe we are.” 

He said it because he rather wanted to believe it himself, and it was all he could do to keep his voice steady as he asserted his claim. Despite that, the words seemed to hit their mark all the same. There was another beat of quiet, and the tension and fear between them all was still palpable, but there was a little quiver of something stubborn and resolute underneath it all, for whatever it was worth. 

He could only hope it was bravery and not foolishness that guided them now.

* * *

Jon held the letter in his hands on the way back out of the tunnels and tried to keep his eyes away from it. He was quiet-- they all were quiet-- but something in his expression must have betrayed his continued worry. 

It was Martin who eventually laid a hand on his arm and asked, “everything alright?” Then he reconsidered, frowning, and added, “s- sorry, I suppose that’s actually a pretty stupid question, given the… sorry.” 

“No, it’s alright,” Jon sighed quietly. “I’m just… trying to stop myself from rereading it, that’s all.” Still, he glanced down at the note again. 

_Dearest Jonathan, my final and only friend,_ the top line read. There was something about it that hurt in a way that he was struggling to understand. He forced himself to look away before he could start skimming down the letter for other lines that pained him. 

The problem was, he supposed, that he wasn’t sure what he had ever done to deserve to be named as such. He wasn’t sure they had ever really been friends at all. 

That was it, wasn’t it? They had never been much more than passingly nice to each other, before. And maybe they had never been friends, exactly, but it still _mattered_ to him that she had gone missing. It wasn’t even a selfless thing-- he had been very much worried for his own safety and for his friends’ safety right from the get go. Why did it feel so personal to him, then? Why did it feel so imperative to him that he see this investigation through to the end? Why did he feel the crushing need to get closure for the pain and horror of someone he couldn’t even call _friend_ with any certainty? 

When he thought of it that way, he could almost begin to understand. Maybe he had never really been close to her, but then, _no one_ had. He couldn’t even say that he was doing this out of any real sense of allegiance to her. But he was still _trying._ Maybe that was the only thing that mattered anymore. 

It still stung, though. It hurt because it wasn’t enough. 

“Jon…” Martin said carefully, rousing him from his spiral of dismay. “I can take it for you, if you like. You don’t have to hold onto it if it hurts you,” he said, though the slight look of defensiveness that crossed Jon’s face gave him pause. “Or at least, turn it so you can’t see it anymore,” Martin said gently. 

For a moment he wanted to protest, but Jon had to concede that just looking at it and making himself anxious wasn’t any help to anyone. 

“Alright,” Jon relented with a sigh. “You’re right. I will.” 

As he did so, however, folding it back up so as to obscure the text, he noticed that in the back corner of it there was something written there in tiny handwriting. 

“It says something else,” Jon said, brow creasing. 

“Okay…, well, that didn’t work very well, then,” Martin conceded. “What does it say, though?” he asked, Sasha and Tim becoming interested as well. 

Jon held it up to read the small print, and Martin leaned over to read it as well. 

_Happy birthday, by the way,_ it read. 

“I-- _What??”_ Jon said, dumbfounded.

“What does it say??” Sasha asked, craning to see it. 

“It-- it says _happy birthday?”_ Martin sputtered, and Sasha exchanged a look of horrified embarrassment with Tim. 

“That’s not right! Your birthday is tomorrow-- i- isn’t it??” Sasha exclaimed. 

“I thought it wasn’t til next week, what the hell??” Tim added. 

“No, it’s-- it’s definitely tomorrow-- Wednesday the twentieth,” Sasha insisted. “It’s Tuesday. Right? It’s definitely only Tuesday.” 

“...Oh my god,” Martin said. 

“I think it _is_ Wednesday, Sash,” Tim said, mortified. 

They all looked at each other, and then Sasha threw up her hands in defeat. 

“Okay! Apparently none of us even know what goddamn day it is anymore!” She said. “Lately everything’s just been one big tunnel-filled blur! I don’t know!” 

“...We were so focused on all this stuff with Jane and the worms that I forgot my own birthday,” Jon said, bewildered. “I cannot _believe_ my life has come to this.” 

The fact that she _remembered_ that about him, of all things-- it was getting under his skin in a way was immeasurably grating, a final straw.

“Jon, I’m-- er-- I’m so sorry,” Martin said uncertainly, “a- are you alright?”

“I mean, I’m _fine,_ but I think I’m just-- angry?” Jon said. “No, I’m _definitely_ angry. Why is it that _Jane_ is keeping better track of that than I am?? That’s just-- it’s hardly fair,” he said, becoming upset. 

“Kind of creepy,” Tim added. 

“Yes! It’s _creepy!_ I don’t like that!” Jon fumed. “Like, I-- cool birthday I’m having! Thanks for this-- this _shitty letter,_ Jane-- ‘happy birthday, I’m gonna raze your school to the ground’-- what on earth is wrong with you?? Ugh!!” He exclaimed, and began to storm on ahead. 

“Jon…” Sasha started, her voice a mixture of mortified concern and apprehension as his friends trailed behind him. 

“I’m-- I don’t-- let’s just get _out_ of here, I just want to go home,” Jon nearly hissed. “Hell, I just want to go to bed, I want today to be _over_ with already,” he said, all the fear and disgust of the day coiling together into something bitter and stinging, his throat constricting. 

It was childish. It was ridiculous, he knew, but he hated this, he didn’t deserve this-- none of them did. Jane didn’t deserve any of it, either, perhaps, but Jon couldn’t help being angry with her nonetheless. He could hardly stand it anymore.

He was going home, and he was going straight to bed, and then after that he was not going to rest until all of this was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon has probably had worse birthdays, if you can believe it. 
> 
> (I have been keeping track of the date in this fic, though. This chapter takes place on November 20th, 2019, with chapter 1 of this story taking place on October 15th.)
> 
> Regarding Jane’s letter… I really wanted to explore her mental and emotional state a bit with that, and I’ve always thought it was interesting how The Corruption seems to tie in so closely with themes of love and belonging and bonds, and how those bonds can become warped and twisted. I did not anticipate getting quite so worked up about Jon and Jane’s ‘friendship’ in this fic as I have, but… here we are. 
> 
> Getting down to business, however… We are now entering the end territory of Arc 1 of this fic. This fic will have 3 arcs in total, with interludes in between arcs. As you can imagine, I’m a bit nervous about making sure everything goes well! Thus, **I will be taking a break from posting just for next week,** so that I can spend some extra time on the finale of this arc; Chapter 15 will be up the weekend after next, on either the 11th or 12th of July. I’m really excited, and I hope you are, too, so… until next time! ^^


	15. Chapter 15

Jon had a nightmare that night. 

It was strange. He didn’t remember a lot of his dreams, and most of the more mundane variety of bad dreams dissipated just as easily as any other. This, he knew immediately, was of a different sort. 

This was more of the sort that had stalked his childhood early on, back when he had first begun to see things that perhaps he should not have seen and realized that the dark unknowns of the world ran even deeper than he had first believed. It was the kind that was steeped in a pervasive sort of dread that bled through the edges of it all. 

It was quiet at first, and dark. 

He saw a figure kneeling on the stone floor of a gray chamber before what appeared to be a massive wasp’s nest at first glance, a fat, sprawling thing that seemed to pulse and throb with malevolent intent. 

She had her back to him, but he knew it to be Jane with complete certainty. She had her arm buried in the pulp of the thing halfway up to the shoulder, and she was limp, unresisting and nearly motionless. She was, however, still breathing. As soon as he detected the faint rasp of her breath, he began to hear something else. 

It was… a buzzing sound. 

Like dozens and dozens of bees, or-- like hundreds of flies, a thick, swarming thing that reverberated deep in his bones. It was a humming, scuttling cacophony, and it began to rise in volume, scraping against Jon’s nerves and setting all his hair on end like nails over a blackboard. It was like the song of a thousand cicadas, the skittering hiss of an unfathomable march of ants. Unease and disgust pierced through him so acutely it choked the breath from his lungs as the awful droning cacophony enveloped him. It was unbearable. It was awful, until for one horrifying moment, it almost, _almost_ wasn’t. 

For a single instant, as the sound filled him, it sounded achingly, wretchedly beautiful, chaotic and destructive and promising, so horribly promising. Before it could reach an all-consuming fever pitch, however, he became aware of a sudden, urgent prickling on the back of his neck, something of a creeping fear that he was not alone. The unbearable urge to cast a nervous glance over his shoulder startled him out of his reverie, and abruptly a low, hissing static rose up in his ears and drowned out the sound of the Hive. 

He turned around, and suddenly they were face to face. 

They were standing in an empty classroom, pale light spilling in through the windows behind them and casting everything in bleak hues. Jane had her arms crossed and was studying him with a rather unimpressed expression. Or, perhaps it was disappointment she was regarding him with, something between disgust, anger and pity. 

“So,” said Jane with a sneer, “this is how it’s going to be, huh-- since you have my _statement,_ now, is that it?” She gestured widely, as if indicating the scene of the nightmare, and shook her head a little in distaste. “Some things never change, I suppose.” 

“I, I-- I’m sorry, what? I don’t understand,” Jon stammered nervously. 

Jane shook her head. “No, you don’t,” she said quietly. “You really, really don’t. I’m… gonna miss you, you know that? Even if you are a complete idiot sometimes.” 

Jon sputtered indignantly for a moment. Jane just gave him a strange, sentimental look, a half-smile, wry and teasing-- and then all at once Jon’s throat closed up with grief, protests dying on his tongue. 

She hummed solemnly. “It’s already over, you know that? It’s all already over.” 

He weighed her words in his head for another moment, a looming threat and a dying promise. 

“The school is, or you are?” Jon asked. 

Jane looked back at him with a peculiar expression. “I suppose that’s up to you now, isn’t it?” 

“You… You don’t even want to be saved at all, do you?” said Jon, though he felt he already knew the answer. 

She gave a derisive snort, and then a bitter little laugh, humorless and empty. 

“Do _you?”_ Jane countered, and Jon suddenly felt very cold. 

“Wh- What?” Jon asked. “I’m-- sorry, what do you mean?” 

“How different do you think we are, really?”

She reached out her hand, resting it on his shoulder. 

Her skin was cold, damp, almost _sticky._ He felt something squirming underneath her palm, beneath her skin, and he twitched involuntarily. 

“Jonathan Sims,” she said, something strange in her tone, “do you even know what you are?” 

That was the point at which Jon shuddered awake. 

His breathing was quick and his heart was beating unsteadily. He sat up in his bed and tried to blink away the remnants of the dream in the darkness of his room. 

His ears were ringing. His shoulder throbbed dully with pain, and he reached up to touch the place where Jane’s hand had rested in the nightmare. 

His fingers came away ever so slightly wet with something that might not have been blood. 

* * *

It was last period on a Friday. The art teacher made no objection to the fact that students were already starting to clean up, and so it was no real surprise that the people who began to pack away their projects early weren’t paying a whole lot of attention to much other than what was going on in their heads. 

This resulted in the clay sculpture of one Michael Shelley going crashing to the ground when a classmate bumped into him on his way to store it. It hit the linoleum tile floor of the classroom with a muffled wet thud, immediately becoming squished into a nearly unrecognizable mass of useless gray. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!!” the girl said. 

Michael just frowned down at it and shrugged, resigned. “It’s alright,” he sighed. “It was an accident.” 

The girl, who had long, messy brown hair and round glasses, set her own project down on the counter beside them. “Oh, geez, I’ve completely ruined it, haven’t I? Let me at least help you clean it up, I-- I’m so sorry about your sculpture…” 

“Er, really, it’s fine,” Michael insisted. “It wasn’t coming out how I wanted it to, anyway, it’s fine. Don’t feel bad.” 

There was something about trying to work with clay that always got away from him, anyway. It never came out quite like he saw it in his mind, the final product becoming distorted into something strange and different. So it didn’t matter, really. It was fine. 

The girl fidgeted guiltily regardless, though didn’t say anything else as they set about cleaning up the mess. She regarded the deformed details of his ruined sculpture with such a stricken expression, as if she felt she had personally destroyed something beautiful, but managed to stop herself from apologizing any further. 

“You’re Michael, right?” She said when they were done. By that point they were just waiting by the door for class to let out. 

He nodded, and she smiled and said, “I’m Sasha. I promise I don’t usually make a habit of murdering cool sculptures, by the way. That was a fluke.” 

Michael laughed a little. “Oh, it was hideous, really, but I suppose I’m glad you think it was alright, even if it _was_ a disaster.” 

Sasha gave him a sheepish look regardless. “Ah, if you say so, I suppose. D- Don’t really fancy yourself the artsy type, then? Me neither, I’m only taking this class because they said I needed the elective credit…” 

“Oh-- it’s just that I don’t care much for clay, I guess. I like to draw, but the drawing class was full, so… I ended up in here instead,” Michael said with a shrug. 

“Really? That’s cool,” Sasha said. “Not-- not the fact that you didn’t get into the other class, I mean, th- the drawing part.” She shuffled a little uncertainly, giving a nervous laugh. Michael took stock of her awkward yet well-meaning behavior and immediately decided that he liked her.

“Don’t worry, I know what you meant! I’ve always liked to doodle and whatnot, keeps my hands busy,” Michael said cheerfully, beaming. 

“Oh, yeah, I get that,” Sasha said conversationally. “Probably takes a lot of doodling in the margins to get any good at it, I suppose. How long have you been drawing for, then?” 

Michael considered for a moment, and then he frowned. 

How long _had_ he been drawing for?

He… He had a notebook full of sketches and scribbles going back to about mid-October; a month’s worth of drawings, at the least. He tried to think of anything further back, though, and came up blank. It was… strange. 

“Huh,” he said after half a beat too long. “I- I don’t know. A long time, I guess.” 

“I see,” she said. “That’s, uh… That’s cool.” 

Thankfully, the bell rang, sparing Michael from having to stumble his clumsy way through any further interactions. “See you next week,” he mumbled, and slipped out the door, relieved. 

Or, he was relieved for about thirty seconds, and then his hand went to his pocket, and he realized he’d forgotten his favorite pen back in class. 

Forgetful as always. He sighed. 

Of course, he had no choice but to turn back and go get it lest it be gone by the time sixth period on Monday rolled around, having to shoulder awkwardly through the crowd to pick his way back. One of these days, he was going to lose that damn thing if he wasn’t careful. He hadn’t lost track of it yet, which was a miracle considering that he was the way he was. 

He wasn’t… entirely sure what it was that made him turn his head in the opposite direction down the now-empty lower level hall as he exited the classroom a second time. 

As he did so, however, he saw an unexpected flicker of movement, someone hurriedly ducking into the room at the far end of the hall-- a now-familiar swish of long, messy brown hair visible in the brief moment before the door closed. The door that, by all means, should probably have been locked. 

He stood there, staring after her, and wondered. 

Sasha James, and a door that should not have been opened. There was something about that combination that did not sit well with him. 

He took a step towards the end of the hall, and then another, half-fighting himself all the way there. What was even _in_ that room? What could she be doing in there? Michael shook his head. He supposed he was about to find out. He turned the handle and stepped inside, something in him tensing up as he passed over the threshold. 

But… it was just… a dark, empty room. He blinked in confusion. 

“S- Sasha?” He called out. “What are you doing in here?” No response. 

He fumbled along the wall for a light switch, but was unable to locate it. “I _know_ I saw you come in here,” Michael said again, slightly louder this time. “Where’d you go?” 

Still nothing. He sighed. 

Part of him just wanted to shrug and turn around, run to catch the bus and try to ignore the unease he felt. This didn’t have to be his problem. If she wanted to snoop around some old creepy storeroom or whatever, that was none of his business, was it? 

Except that this room couldn’t possibly be that big, and yet Sasha was nowhere to be seen. 

Except that, somewhere deep his bones, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was not right.

He knew that he recognized her as he saw her duck into this room. Looking around this place now, picking his way through the gloom, he certainly _seemed_ to be alone. Surely those two things couldn’t both be true… unless, perhaps, he hadn’t seen her at all, and his eyes had just been playing tricks on him. Unless his mind was just _lying_ to him. Oh, no. Something about that very idea felt sharp and cold, unease twisting weightlessly in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to believe that. 

In the end, true to form, it was that he became so distracted by that line of thinking that he ultimately tripped over it: the raised edge of the trapdoor. Michael let out a strangled yelp and fell to his hands and knees upon it in the dark. 

Yet another door that should not have been what it was, strange as it may have been. Something within him shuddered terribly as his scraped-up hands connected with the surface of it. 

It was-- it was the strangest thing, the dual-edged feeling that lanced through him. 

The first, the immediate, rose up from the ominous unknown of the passageway beneath his hands: a pull, a tugging feeling, something dark and whispering and promising. It called to him. _There is something here you need to know,_ it said. Something in him trembled. 

The second, following quick on the heels of the first and welling up from somewhere deep within him: an overwhelming, paralyzing sense of dread, a sharp déjà vu with no origin point. A door that shouldn’t be there. A door that wasn’t what it seemed. Some unknown part of him cried out, thrashing and screaming and railing against it. 

Why? Why did that thought fill him with such trepidation? What reason did he have to fear that? Michael’s heart was pounding in his chest. He didn’t _know._ He wracked his mind for a reason, a memory to pin to the reaction, an explanation, a _causation._ He came up empty-handed. No, worse than that-- he came up with an _absence._ His head throbbed with the strain of trying to understand something that did not want to be understood. 

Something had to be wrong. 

That was the first moment that Michael Shelley finally began to realize that there was something well and truly not right with him. It felt momentous in a way not entirely earned, far from the beginning and far from the truth, not a catalyst but a realization, a recognition. 

Slowly, he crawled away from the trapdoor, and then, hesitating, he worked up the courage to lift it up and peer down the steps into the darkness below. He drew his knees up to his chest and forced himself to take a shaky deep breath, trying to control the wild, shapeless anxiety he felt. He stared down the passageway and thought of Sasha and why she might have gone into such a place, thought of the dagger-sharp terror that coursed through his veins unbidden, thought of a reality that he wasn’t sure was quite what he thought it was, unsteady and coming apart at the seams in places. He considered the push-and-pull warring of his thoughts, the desire to go in after her and see what lay beyond those steps strangled by the unexplainable fear that welled up from somewhere beyond his understanding. 

_I’ll just stay here,_ he thought, _and wait for her to return._ To ask her where on earth that passageway led. To ask what she was even doing in such a place. To make sure she came back at all, because maybe he was just scaring himself, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to rest easy until she did. 

Unless she _didn’t_ come back out. If-- if that was the case, then… he wasn’t sure what he would _do,_ but he supposed he would have to cross that bridge if he got there. 

(He desperately hoped he wouldn’t get there. He really, really hoped.) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Michael has been minding his own business for much of this arc. It is time for him to start getting involved. 
> 
> That, and poor Jon, and his inescapable relationship with entities and nightmares. Will the world ever let him rest? We may never know.


	16. Chapter 16

The two major things that had changed in the two days since the group received Jane’s letter were that, firstly, they had begun to notice a marked increase in the presence of worms down in the tunnels, and secondly, that for all the good it did him, Jon had started carrying a knife. 

Yesterday, during their explorations there had been some hushed and nervous talk of what, if anything, their actual _plan_ entailed. 

“I mean, what are we going to do if and when we find her?” Sasha had asked. “Are we seriously just going to, I dunno, punch her or something? Do we even have any idea of what her weaknesses might be, or like, _anything_ that might help?” 

_“Punch_ her? Absolutely not, don’t be ridiculous,” Jon had said. 

“Well? Do you have any better ideas? What are we going to do?” Sasha had said insistently. 

That was the point at which Jon had simply reached into his backpack, whipped out his stolen kitchen knife and said, “well, I was just going to stab her, I think,” at which point the group erupted into chaos and stammering. 

“Jon, what-- that is absolutely not a better idea!” Sasha said in surprise. 

“Holy crap _,_ Jon, h- have you just been carrying that around the whole time!?” Martin exclaimed. “I-- I know this is kind of an extenuating circumstance and all, but I mean-- you can’t just have _weapons_ at school! You’ll get in trouble!”

Jon snorted. “Sure, what’s Elias gonna do, expel me?” 

“I really don’t think you’re immune to being expelled just because you’re the principal’s kid, I don’t think that’s how that works,” Tim pointed out. 

“Well, first of all--”

“Even so!” Sasha insisted before they could get any further sidetracked. “You really think that’s a good plan?? We’re just gonna stab a girl??” 

“…I mean, to be fair--” Tim started. 

“Tim, oh my god, do _not_ play devil’s advocate for Jon’s crazy idea,” Sasha said. 

“Okay, yeah, but I’m just saying-- she might have become an evil worm whisperer hellbent on destruction and all, but she’s probably still-- I mean… I’d have to assume she still has _organs,_ most of which do not enjoy being stabbed,” Tim pointed out.

That had been followed by a beat of silence, before Sasha just reluctantly sighed and said, “I mean-- I guess you’re not… _wrong?”_

“Now, normally I’d feel much more trepidation about the idea of stabbing something that used to be my classmate, yes,” Jon had admitted, “but we don’t really-- she hasn’t left us with much of a _choice_ in the matter.” 

“She did threaten to fill our school with worms first,” Martin pointed out tentatively. 

“Yeah, Sasha,” Tim agreed. “Fair’s fair, really. What does she expect us to do, just lie down and die? We have to do _something.”_

“No, I suppose you’ve sort of got a point,” Sasha had said eventually. “I mean I don’t think it’s very-- but-- oh, I suppose it’s not like we have any better ideas, so… yeah, I- I guess you’re right.” 

So that was their plan. 

If he was being honest with himself, Jon did not feel particularly confident in it, but it was the best they had. 

Dwelling on it, however, had not turned up any better ideas and only served to make him more and more anxious and afraid. He was aware that it was nothing in the face of the threats Jane had levelled at them. What had begun as an investigation into the unexplained vanishing of a classmate had spiralled into something much bigger and much worse. There was a lot at stake, and it was-- it was terrifying, to him, of course it was. He took a deep breath, reminding himself that they’d anticipated a confrontation right from the start, even if this wasn’t quite the shape he’d thought it would take, reminded himself for the dozenth time that Jane wasn’t even human anymore. 

No use worrying himself to death over it. Best to focus on the present. 

The present being that they were combing through another stretch of hallways lined irregularly with doors on either side, which were annoyingly common in this particular sector. 

Of course, the possibility that they could miss something important stopped them from simply ignoring them, so they usually split the contents of these corridors up between the four of them to tackle as a team. Martin and Sasha started at the near end of it, while Jon and Tim had taken the far end and were slowly working their way back towards the middle. 

Jon reached out to try the next door, and recoiled in horror when he felt something brush against his hand, letting out a yelp of surprise. 

“What’s wrong over there, Jon?” Sasha called from her end of the hall. 

“Th- There’s a _spider_ on the handle!” Jon exclaimed. 

There it sat, now perched in plain sight, motionless, as if waiting for his next move. Jon shuddered. 

“Oh shit!” Said Tim. “Kill it!” 

“What? No!” Martin protested. “It’s just a spider, it’s not hurting anybody!” 

“Who cares? Just smash it,” said Tim. 

“No, no, I am absolutely _not_ dealing with that,” Jon hissed, backing away. 

Tim rolled his eyes. “Don’t be such a big baby,” he said. 

“Tim--” Sasha said objectingly. 

“I’m not being a baby!” Jon protested, flustered. “I- I just don’t like spiders, alright?” He said, which was only half of the truth, but he had no desire to go into it _now_ of all times. 

Unbothered by the commotion, the spider merely continued to stare at him, its tiny eyes glinting. 

Something about its gaze made Jon feel very uneasy, a little prickle of warning crawling up his neck. 

“Oh my god, you weenie,” Tim sighed. “Then go try a different door, I’ll come deal with your spider,” he said. 

“A- Alright,” Jon said, relieved for a moment. He retreated further back down the hall towards Martin and Sasha, away from the spider. 

“You two, er, having any luck over here?” Jon asked them sheepishly, self-conscious. 

“Nothing so far,” Sasha said. “Just more random junk and debris, really.” 

“Found some more worms,” Martin volunteered. “Not much else.” 

So far, the worms, while appearing more and more frequently, had been… slow, almost docile. Almost. Easy to evade, easy to stomp on. Still, they kept a very close eye on them, careful not to let the worms touch them. Jon still remembered the last time he’d properly seen Jane, the circular wounds dotting her skin. He still shuddered a little when he thought of the nightmare he’d had, the image of Jane with her arm buried in the pulp of that massive hive. Just because the worms had yet to actively try to harm one of them did not mean they could be safely ignored. 

Jane had been plenty clear about her intentions. 

“Is this the one?” Tim asked, inspecting the door. 

...Which is why, when there was a faint, quiet sort of _thump_ from a door two over from where Tim was standing, followed by the emergence of a few worms beginning to squirm out from underneath it into the corridor, it was an immediate cause for alarm. 

Especially so, given the fact that Tim didn’t seem to take notice of their appearance.

“Well, I certainly don’t _see_ any spiders here,” Tim said, confused. 

Jon, Martin and Sasha exchanged nervous glances with each other. 

“Er… Tim?” Sasha said apprehensively. 

“Jon, are you sure you weren’t just seeing things?” Tim said. Unbeknownst to him, worms continued to ooze out from under the other door at a slowly increasing rate. 

“Tim,” Sasha said again, more firmly this time. 

“No, seriously, there’s nothing here,” Tim insisted. 

There was another _thump_ from the other door. 

“Tim,” Sasha warned. “Turn around. Behind you. Just-- Just turn around.” 

He turned in their direction, uneasy. “What--?” 

That was the point at which the other door burst open. 

There was an immediate cascade of silvery worms, spilling out into the corridor in alarming quantities with a horrible squelching noise, and then a figure emerged from the doorway. 

She was nearly unrecognizable. 

Her form was twisted and warped, her skin was splotchy and discolored and pitted with holes, honeycombed over every visible inch. Worms _dripped_ from her body as she took a jerking, staggering step forward, and then turned to fix her attention on Tim. There he stood, aghast, eyes wide with horror and disgust, frozen in shock as the thing that wasn’t Jane anymore advanced. 

He was cut off from them now, the door with the worms standing in between him and the others, and that realization filled them with a cold, sharp sense of peril. 

_“Tim!!!”_ Sasha cried out. 

There was only a moment’s hesitation, and then-- Sasha rushed forward, charging into the fray and tackling Jane from behind. 

They went crashing to the floor, Sasha falling hard on the ground and rolling away from her, consequently crushing a number of worms as she struggled to get away before Jane had a chance to react. This caused Tim to finally unfreeze, and he darted in to help her to her feet. 

“Sasha!” Jon called out as Jane hauled herself painstakingly up from the ground behind them. 

Sasha whirled around, her face pale. “Oh, shit,” she hissed under her breath. She glanced rapidly between Jane and the end of the hall where Jon and Martin were and said, “Christ’s sake, don’t just stand there! Run!” 

“What!?” Martin exclaimed. “W- We can’t just leave y--”

The thing that wasn’t Jane spun around to face them. Her eyes were nothing but hollow sockets, and Jon felt a jolt of fear go through him as her mouth fell open. 

_“Archivissst,”_ she hissed out with difficulty. 

“Oh my god, just _run!”_ Sasha cried out. 

Jane took a lurching step toward them, and Jon decided he didn’t need to be told again. He grabbed Martin by the arm, and they ran. 

* * *

It was Tim who eventually broke the silence. 

“So… Do you think Jon and Martin are gonna be alright?” He asked tentatively as they moved. 

Sasha took a labored breath, which became a half-choked gasp as her arm throbbed with pain. “They’ll be fine,” she wheezed. “They’re smart, they’ll figure something out.”

“...Are _you_ going to be okay?” Tim asked, concerned. 

“Y- Yeah, ‘s fine,” Sasha said. “Just… shoulder hurts where I fell on it, that’s all. It’s fine, though. Don’t, uh-- don’t worry too much about it.” She paused. “I’m also just… _covered_ in worm slime, which is really gross, but other than that I really could be a lot worse.” 

“If you say so,” Tim mumbled. 

After a moment he added, “so, uh… it seems I was probably wrong about my earlier claim that she probably still has internal organs,” which, somehow, managed to earn a tiny laugh from Sasha despite everything. 

“You think?” 

“Yeah, I mean-- you would think a person needs lungs and all that shit to live, but somehow I’m willing to wager a guess that she’s probably just got, like, even more worms in there.” 

“God, I hope Jon doesn’t still think he’s going to be able to just stab her,” Sasha said, half-smiling a terrified little smile. 

“Ummm, I don’t think that’s gonna work, no,” Tim said. “I mean, he can try, but I’m pretty sure if he does she’s just gonna be like, ‘surprise, bitch, guess what I have instead of blood now’.”

“More worms,” Sasha ventured. 

“Almost certainly more worms,” Tim agreed. 

They were quiet for another moment, the only sound being the steady thump of their echoing footsteps and the sound of their ragged breathing as it began to even out. 

“Can I just say, what the _fuck,”_ said Tim eventually. 

“That-- yeah,” Sasha agreed. “I mean, _yeah_ I read her letter, I know she _said_ a whole bunch of stuff about a- a hive and all that, but… Jesus.” She shook her head. “Don’t know what I was expecting.” 

“Not _that,_ somehow,” Tim suggested. 

“Yeah. Not that. Not in that way.” Sasha was quiet for a moment. “But that’s just the way this sort of thing goes, isn’t it? Nothing’s as normal as you think it is. Every time you think you’ve seen the weirdest of it, you’re wrong.” 

“Especially around Jon,” Tim added. 

“He is really good at… seeing that sort of thing,” Sasha agreed tentatively. 

“I don’t want to say he’s a danger magnet, but somehow it just seems like paranormal stuff absolutely will _not_ leave him alone.” 

Sasha snorted. “Don’t know how he manages, really.” 

“It’s like he’s walking around with some sort of supernatural _kick me_ sign on his back or something,” Tim said. “Guy will be minding his own business trying to do whatever nerd stuff he does in his free time and out of nowhere get stabbed by a ghost or something.” 

“That’s our Jon,” Sasha agreed with a weak little smile, which Tim returned warmly. 

“...You ever see weird stuff like that before meeting him?” He asked after a moment, looking contemplative. 

Sasha considered. “I… I dunno. Not really, I suppose. But I’ve always believed it was out there.”

Tim hummed in response. “So have I.” 

“How about you, then?” Sasha asked tentatively. “See any spooky stuff before?”

Tim paused for a moment. 

“Not… personally,” he said. 

“Oh, yeah?” Sasha said, lowering her voice a bit. 

He considered, letting out a slow breath. “Yeah, I… guess I know someone who has, though, or… or _maybe_ has, it’s-- I dunno,” Tim admitted. “My, uh… Well, you know Danny’s friend?” 

“Sure,” Sasha said. She’d been to Tim and Danny’s house loads of times, and Danny and his best friend were nearly inseparable. 

“Well, it’s just… I-- I don’t really know the full story or anything,” Tim said uneasily, “but, well… Danny says she, uh, she had this little sister… went to go visit their dad one day, he-- he took them to the circus-- retired circus worker himself, apparently…” 

“Okay, sure, clowns are kinda creepy and all, but--” Sasha started a little teasingly. 

“--Her sister never came back,” Tim finished. 

“I… oh,” Sasha said. 

“Yeah,” Tim said quietly. “I mean, I-- I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t really know what happened there, she doesn’t usually like to talk about it.” He paused. “I know it doesn’t _sound_ spooky, but-- I guess I’ve always had the weirdest feeling about it. I dunno. Forget it, I guess.” 

Sasha considered quietly for a moment. 

“...Tim, is that why you’ve always hated clowns so much?” She asked, trying not to smile. 

“No, that’s not-- okay, no-- first of all, _everyone_ should hate clowns,” Tim defended, and Sasha snorted. “That has nothing to do with-- oh my god, never mind,” he shoved at Sasha, and she laughed. 

Belatedly, however, she winced and reached up to grab her shoulder. “Ow, shit,” she muttered. 

“S- Sorry!” Tim said. “Sorry, I forgot, you okay?” 

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” 

Tim frowned. “Well, I’m already worrying about it, so too late for that.” 

“Really, I’m… We’ve got better things to worry about right now.” 

“Right,” Tim mumbled. 

“We’ve gotta find Jon and Martin, a- and then come up with a way to beat Jane,” Sasha said. 

“Just one problem…” Tim sighed, gesturing around the tunnels. “They could be literally anywhere.” 

“Not true. It hasn’t been _that_ long, they can’t be far,” Sasha said. “I… I hope.” 

“We’ll find them,” Tim said. 

Sasha nodded somberly. “Before Jane does, I should hope,” she added quietly. 

She reached up again to rub her shoulder, and Tim winced sympathetically. 

“Let’s just keep moving,” she said grimly. 

* * *

“Well,” Martin wheezed as they hurried along, “looks like we’re all going to die and be eaten by a thousand worms, then, huh?” He gave a nervous, hysterical little laugh. 

“Martin,” Jon said admonishingly. 

“Either that or we’re gonna run too far and get lost in these weird creepy tunnels forever,” Martin continued anxiously. “O- Or Sasha and Tim are gonna get lost and we’re never going to see them again-- oh, god, or Jane’s already found them, and they’re dead, oh no,” he said frantically. 

“Martin, that’s not--” 

“Oh my god, what are we going to _do,_ n- no one even knows where we are,” Martin despaired. “We’re gonna die and no one’s even gonna know what happened to us, and we’re just gonna disappear forever and become a mystery, and--” 

“Martin!!” Jon exclaimed sharply. “Will you _stop_ inventing terrible ways for everything to go wrong-- we are _not_ going to die!” 

Jon was still a little out of breath, half-limping and struggling to keep up the pace. They’d fled deeper into the tunnels to escape Jane’s pursuit, but not long after believing they’d lost her, they’d rounded a corner only to encounter an alarming quantity of worms occupying the corridor. The worms had practically lunged for them, and in their haste to get away, Jon had tripped and injured his leg. 

“S- Sorry,” Martin murmured. 

“It’s not going to do either of us any good,” Jon said testily. “We don’t have time to work ourselves into a panic, we need to find the others.” 

“I- I know,” Martin said quietly. “I know that, I’m just-- a bit freaked out, is all…” 

“Well, you’re freaking me out, too!” Jon snapped. “I’m already beyond terrified, I-- I don’t need your _help_ coming up with reasons to be afraid,” he said and gasped a little as he stumbled. Martin was quick to steady him. 

“Sorry,” Martin said again, fainter this time. 

They were silent for a few agonizingly long minutes. 

Jon tried to focus on keeping track of where they were going and stopping his pain from getting in the way. But… He couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Martin out of the corner of his eye. Martin had his arms folded over his chest, shoulders hunched miserably, and every time Jon looked over at him it only made guilt twist in his chest, until at last he couldn’t take it anymore. 

Jon gave a quiet sigh and said, “that… wasn’t fair.” 

“It’s alright,” Martin mumbled flatly. 

“It’s not,” Jon said. “You don’t deserve… it’s-- it’s hardly fair of me to lash out, that’s not going to help us any, either, I’m…” 

“Jon…” 

“I’m sorry,” Jon said. “I shouldn’t have-- I didn’t mean-- I’m sorry.” 

“Jon,” Martin said wearily. “It’s really alright. We’re both just really frightened, that’s all. I get it.” 

Jon opened his mouth to force out another awkward, anxious apology, but Martin just reached for his hand and squeezed it, and Jon fell silent. 

After another moment or two, Jon finally said, “thanks.” 

“Wh… What for?” Martin asked. 

“For… not leaving me behind,” Jon mumbled. “When the-- when the worms attacked, and I fell… and you came back to help me…” 

Martin gave him a strange look. “You really think I’d just leave you to be eaten by a million worms?” 

“W- Well, that’s not what I-- no,” Jon said quickly, and Martin smiled a little. 

“It’s just-- I know you’re… scared, I- I’m terrified, too.” Jon fidgeted apprehensively. “For a moment, when I hit the ground… I thought, oh god, I’m-- I’m done for. This is it. This is the monster that finally kills me. And I was… just… utterly _paralyzed_ by the thought of it. I… I don’t know. I suppose I’m just trying to say… that was very… brave of you.” 

“Well,” Martin said, “Tim and Sasha would kick my ass if you died on my watch.” 

Jon couldn’t help laughing a little at that. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said. “E- Even so. Thank you. I mean it.” 

Martin just shook his head. “I can’t believe you actually thought I was just gonna sacrifice you to the worms,” he said teasingly. 

“Shut up,” Jon huffed, his face growing red, and Martin just laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The archives gang has… one single brain cell in between them, and Jon _thinks_ he has it, but more often than not Sasha and Martin are having a fierce custody battle over it. 
> 
> So, assuming everything ends up going as planned on my end, the finale of arc 1 is going to be coming up at Chapter 19. Warning for canon-typical worm horror from here on out.


	17. Chapter 17

Jon was _trying_ to keep up the pace. He really was. He was making a concerted effort to not let his injured leg slow them down, but his pain must have been visible in the way he carried himself, because eventually Martin stopped and said, “Jon, do you, uh… do you need to stop for a moment?” 

“I… Alright,” Jon sighed reluctantly. “For… just a minute or two, I-- I suppose that can’t hurt. Then we need to keep going.” 

Jon leaned against the wall of the tunnel and tried to catch his breath, letting his eyes fall closed for a moment. 

“So… on the bright side, at least we found Jane at all?” Martin said tentatively. 

“That’s not Jane anymore,” Jon said wearily. “That’s a corpse with a thousand worms in it. The person who used to be Jane Prentiss is already long gone.” 

“...Fair enough,” Martin decided after a moment. 

“But, you’re right,” Jon amended quickly. “We found her.” 

Which was good in so far as he was terrified to think of what they would have done if they hadn’t been able to find her and confront her in time, before she got the chance to make good on her ultimatum. _Bad_ in so far as now they had to contend with the monster that became of her. 

“So… you still think that knife of yours is gonna do any good, or--?” 

“Okay, yes, yes, I admit I’ve wildly miscalculated how effective slashing damage is going to be against a-- a horde of worms, I know,” Jon huffed, embarrassed. Martin laughed a little, and Jon smiled faintly despite himself. 

They were quiet for another moment, and Jon took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. 

“...Do you think Tim and Sasha are okay?” Martin asked quietly. 

“Yes,” Jon said, “they’re fine.”

Martin shuffled nervously. “I just hope they’re n- not too far away or anything…” 

“They’re not,” Jon assured him distractedly. “We’re going to find them soon.”

“Well, um, if you think so…” 

“They’re looking for us, of course. Going the wrong way, actually, at the moment,” Jon said off-handedly, “but ultimately we’re not going to have too much trouble outpacing them. We’ll catch up within a few more minutes, they’re not far yet.” 

Then he paused, realizing. His head throbbed suddenly. 

“W- Wait a minute,” Jon said. 

“Jon,” Martin said cautiously. 

“That was-- that was strange, I don’t--” Jon fumbled. 

“How do you know that,” Martin said slowly. 

He couldn’t know that, is the thing. He couldn’t possibly know that. 

“I-- I don’t,” Jon stammered. “Just-- er-- just a feeling, I don’t…” 

“Jon, I’m serious,” Martin pressed. “How do you know?” 

“I- I’m serious, too!” Jon protested. “It’s nothing, I’m not sure what came over me, it’s--” 

“Why do you _do_ that??” Martin exclaimed. 

“Do _what?”_

“Why do you always act like that about it??” 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Jon said defensively. 

Martin threw his hands up in frustration. “There you go again! You do it all the time! You’re doing it right now!” 

“Well, I really don’t know what you’re referring to, so--” 

“You always act like you don’t know what we’re talking about when I-- when we ask about your-- your weird premonitions, a- and stuff like that!” Martin said, and Jon felt a twist of something very near to terror in his gut. 

“Martin, I don’t--” Jon started nervously. 

“We already _know_ supernatural stuff is real-- Christ, we’re literally being chased by some sort of… worm-- queen-- thing!” 

“I- I really can’t talk about--” Jon stammered, panic bubbling up inside of him. 

“And why _not??_ It’s not like we’re not going to _believe_ you, Jon-- so why?” Martin insisted. “Why do you always refuse to talk about it?” Martin said, a note of pleading desperation creeping into his voice. 

There it was again, like always, that awful sense of foreboding prickling ominously on the back of Jon’s neck, making him shudder involuntarily-- a heaviness, a presence, an urgent sense of something indescribable and perilous gripping him. 

This was the one thing he could never, never bring himself to face. This was the one thing all words died in his throat just to think of: the unknown truth of the power he’d always carried with him, the root of it stretching down deep into him, further than he feared he would ever understand. Jon’s heart was beating rapidly. 

He didn’t know where it began. He didn’t know where it ended. 

That thought _terrified_ him. 

“Because I’m _scared,_ Martin!” Jon snapped, screwing his eyes shut against the awful pressure of it. “I’m-- I’m terrified! I don’t _know_ what it is! I don’t _know_ how it works or-- or where it’s from, I- I thought I understood it, but then-- I don’t know! I don’t _want_ to keep it secret from you,” Jon admitted, his voice wavering. 

“What do you…” Martin started, uneasy. 

“I’m scared of it,” Jon went on, struggling to find the words. “E- Every time I try to talk about it, I just-- I- I don’t know, I just get this _feeling…”_

“Jon, hey-- breathe,” Martin said firmly, “it’s okay, just-- just…” 

“It’s like I’m being watched!” Jon said desperately. A horrible shudder went through him. “I can’t-- I can’t talk about it because it feels like something’s _watching_ me, seeing h- how I react, like if I _say_ anything, it’ll-- it’ll _know!”_

“Wh… What will know--?” Martin said, and then shook his head. “Never mind, that-- that doesn’t matter. I- I’m sorry I pushed,” he said. 

“I want to explain it to you, I really do, I… I don’t know… I don’t understand… I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Jon said despairingly. 

“No, I-- Jon,” Martin said firmly, putting his hands on Jon’s shoulders. “Jon, listen to me. Nothing is _happening._ Nothing is _wrong_ with you. If you say you can’t talk about it, I-- I believe you. Whatever else you think, please believe that. It’s not your fault.” 

Jon let the words sink in for a moment, looking back at Martin like a deer in headlights. 

“Breathe,” Martin said again. “It’s okay. Just breathe.” 

So he did, forcing himself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then another, until the acute throbbing pain in his head began to subside and his panic began to dissipate, until the ominous, creeping pressure faded away. His shoulders slumped. 

“Nothing is wrong with you,” Martin told him again, “okay?” 

“Okay,” Jon said uncertainly, although the reassurance made him feel a little bit weak. 

“I’m sorry, I-- I didn’t realize it was that hard for you,” Martin said. 

“It’s fine,” Jon murmured. 

“I didn’t mean to upset you or anything. I guess it must be… scary,” Martin said, “seeing stuff all the time. I mean, I know _I’d_ be scared.” 

“It is,” Jon said quietly. “I’m sorry. I-- I _want_ to tell you guys. It’s not that I don’t trust you. I do.”

“I know you do,” Martin said. “And you know we’re always gonna believe you, right? You know we don’t think you’re, you know, _weird?”_

“Except… I am,” Jon mumbled. 

“Yeah, but-- oh, you know what I mean,” Martin insisted. “We don’t think it’s _bad,_ or that you’re, I dunno, a freak or something.”

“I- I never said…” Jon started, starting to become self-conscious. 

“You were thinking it,” Martin countered. 

Jon didn’t have anything to say to that. 

“You’re just you. Weird powers and all,” Martin said. “We’re always gonna believe in you. No matter what. You’re still just our Jon,” he said gently. “Okay?” 

“Martin…” Jon started softly, protestingly. He struggled to find the words to do any justice to the weight of the affirmation he’d just been given, and came up short. “I… okay,” he said at last, a little weakly. “Okay.” 

He didn’t have long to bask in the warmth of it, though. 

Another moment and the prickling feeling returned with urgency, filling him with premonition and dread. 

“Oh, no,” Jon said. 

They had lingered for too long. They hadn’t been thinking. 

“Wh- What’s wrong?” 

“I think--” 

There was a faint squelching noise from behind them, too close. 

“--She’s here,” Jon said. 

“Shit,” Martin hissed. 

Jon was aware that they couldn’t keep fleeing from her forever, but when he whirled around and his eyes fell upon her, warped and twisted and oozing corruption-- everything went blank. He had no idea what recourse he could possibly have against a thousand worms wearing the shape of a girl he didn’t know if he’d ever really known, an unfathomable squirming whole and a body stripped down to an awful purpose; a hive, wretched and staggering and haunting. 

“Run,” Jon said, and this time Martin didn’t need to be further convinced. 

* * *

“Quiet, quiet,” Sasha suddenly hissed. 

“What--?” Tim started. 

“Do you hear that?” 

Tim froze, both of them straining their ears to listen. Sure enough, there it was: a faint thumping noise, distant but rapidly growing louder. 

“Footsteps,” Sasha whispered hurriedly. 

“Do you think it’s--?” 

“Sasha!” Came a voice from deeper in the tunnels. “Tim!” 

“Jon!!” Sasha exclaimed. 

Within another moment he was in view, rounding a corner and frantically hurrying towards them with an unsteady stride. 

“Y- You guys,” he gasped as he came to a halt, “We need to-- w- we need to-- haa… damn it, m- my leg…” Jon wheezed. “We have to go-- we have to--” 

“Whoa, hey, slow down,” Tim said. “What happened? You sprain something?” 

“I- I don’t know, I--”

“Where’s Martin?” Sasha asked nervously. 

“Gone,” Jon gasped. “He- he was following me-- or, we were running away-- I don’t know what happened, I- I- I looked-- one moment he was there-- I think he thought I was behind him, I don't know--”

“Shit,” Tim cursed under his breath. 

“You got attacked by Jane?” Sasha ventured, “and when you ran away you got separated?” 

“Y- Yes,” Jon panted. “W- We need to-- ohh,” he swayed dizzily, all but collapsing into Tim, who gave a startled gasp, hurriedly trying to steady him. 

“We have to go,” Jon said urgently, heedless to his compromised state. “We have to find him… He could be in danger, Jane could be… h- he could be… oh, Martin… Martin, I’m…” 

Sasha and Tim exchanged a tense look. 

“Jon-- can you even walk??” Tim asked. 

“I can _limp,”_ Jon hissed out defensively, righting himself. “It’s-- nothing. I made it this far, didn’t I?” He challenged. 

“Sasha?” Tim said, looking to her apprehensively. 

The question, unspoken as it was: how much were they willing to push? Where was the line? When did they have no choice but to back down and try to run for help-- could they accept the risk of trying to push on with one friend injured and another missing, could they accept the cost of trying to find help if it ended up not being enough, ended up making it worse? If they stayed, where would they go? If they left, where would they even _go?_

 _“Well?”_ Jon demanded sharply. “What are we just standing around for? We need to keep going. We don’t have any more time to waste!” 

Fortunately for Sasha, she had plenty of experience with this sort of high stakes risk-reward calculation. This wasn’t their first monster hunt. She made her decision. 

She nodded gravely, first at Tim, and then Jon. “Alright,” she said. “Then let’s go.” 

* * *

An hour and thirteen minutes. 

That’s how long it would take for Martin to be able to leave. 

Martin was locked in a room. She had chased him down ruthlessly, far quicker than he’d imagined possible in her state. He’d thought he was going to die for a moment when Jane cornered him in a dead-end corridor. He’d had his back against the wall, but when he felt something raised and circular dig into his back, he realized that it hadn’t been a wall at all-- it was another door, disguised the same stone gray as the rest of the tunnel walls. He’d pulled on the handle with all of the strength and terror he had, desperately hoping that this wasn’t one of the sort that didn’t actually go anywhere, and it had opened with a shuddering creak. 

He’d slammed the door shut behind him, fumbled with the ancient, rusty lock and latched it into place with trembling hands. This had been immediately followed by a horrible, wet _thump_ as the thing that wasn’t Jane anymore threw her entire body weight against it, once, twice, and then banging on the door with a thunderous force. As if he was going to open up if she just knocked. Please. 

That was all fine and well for a short time as Martin gasped for breath, heart pounding erratically in his chest. But then a worm wriggled its way underneath the door and into the chamber, and then another. He tried stomping on them, but as the worms continued to ooze through, they began to appear at a steadily increasing rate, and Martin had realized that he wouldn’t be able to hold them off that way for long. 

So… it was really a coincidence, his _first_ discovery, which was that he fumbled desperately for something, _anything_ in the room with him that he could use, something to block the door, something to stop the worms-- and his hands fell on a cold, slightly rusty metal canister. 

He wasn’t entirely sure what made him think spraying the worms with it would help. As it happened, the worms did not enjoy being doused with CO2. 

In fact, they hated it so much that they simply curled up and died. Their aversion to it was such that they wisely decided not to waste their numbers trying again, which was great news, because Martin was fairly sure that inhaling CO2 was actually not ideal for human health, either, and he wasn’t particularly eager to test how much he could spray that thing in an enclosed space without causing himself harm. 

The problem was that Jane still stood on the other side of the door and she kept. _Banging. On. It._

Every time the pounding ceased for a few minutes and Martin started to think it was possible that she’d given up, it would resume once more. She just kept knocking. She just kept _waiting,_ and Martin was trapped in this room, with no other way out. 

His only consolation was that if she was here, waiting for him to open the door, then he knew for a fact she wasn’t god knows where else in the tunnels, hunting his friends for sport, eating them alive with a hundred worms or whatever. 

Yay. 

Except-- as he took a deep breath and scanned the rest of the room for the first time, he had a _second_ discovery about what else was in this chamber. 

Which was that there turned out to be a fucking skeleton in there. 

Martin let out a muffled, horrified yelp as his eyes fell upon it, lying slumped against the far wall. A fresh spike of anxiety pierced his gut, and he forced himself to take a shaky breath. So-- he was locked in a room with a _literal human skeleton_ inside it, and a flesh-eating worm monster outside it. It was all almost comically horrific. It was all just _too much._ For a moment, Martin thought he was going to faint. He didn’t. Thankfully. 

Alongside the skeleton, however, were books. 

There were dozens of them. Aside from a few that had toppled to the floor, they were stacked symmetrically around it, a shrine of words and bones. This immediately struck him as strange, and immediately piqued his curiosity, morbid as it may have been. 

He took a deep breath, and then another, and then a tentative step forward. 

This was a bad idea. He knew that. He picked up a tome from the floor to examine. 

Except-- before he could work up the courage to open it, the strangest sensation came over him. It was… a prickling, urgent feeling, subtle and creeping at first, and quickly focusing into an acute foreboding-- a sharp, throbbing headache-- and then a sudden sense of absolute certainty that whatever was inside this book wanted to hurt him. He gasped, and the book tumbled out of his hands, hitting the ground with a resounding _thump._ His ears were ringing. The inside of his head felt like pins-and-needles, sharp and electric and overwhelming. He could feel his pulse in the back of his eyeballs. 

Never mind, he decided. Hastily he took a step back. 

So he was in a room that had not only had a human skeleton in it and a stubborn worm queen outside it, but was also filled with evil books. 

_Fantastic._

Martin started to sigh, but flinched when the banging at the door came back once again. Cool, cool, cool, this was fine, absolutely fine. He was probably going to die here. He forced down the shuddering panic rising in his chest, berating himself once again for losing track of Jon. 

Martin really, really hoped he was okay. He was torn between wanting his friends to come and find him and save him from this awful room, and not wanting them anywhere near Jane, not wanting them to be in danger. At least, not _without_ him. He didn’t want to be a hostage. He didn’t want to be useless. What he _wanted_ was to face this danger side by side with them, he didn’t want it to be like _this,_ locked away, alone and powerless. He exhaled a shaky breath. 

An hour and thirteen minutes, he would be there. He didn’t know it yet, of course, but until then, he would have no choice but to wait and to try to keep that skeleton’s hollow stare from getting to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously I’m not going to keep Martin in the tunnels for thirteen days. That would be absurd. 
> 
> (I can’t promise he’s not going to have a decidedly terrible time in the interim, though.)


	18. Chapter 18

In the end, the thing that put an end to Martin’s entrapment in that awful room with the skeleton and the books was that Tim simply busted through a section of the wall. 

Martin had been sitting with his back to the wall, trying and failing not to let his panic spiral out of control as he waited, alone. He’d had no choice but to hope that either Jane would give up on waiting stubbornly on the other side of the door and let him leave, or that he would figure something out before she did, before she somehow found another way in and-- and did _whatever_ she was planning to do, which Martin had no trouble at all convincing himself would be gruesome and horrific and terrible. Had no trouble imagining in vivid detail, really, in dozens of new and deeply upsetting ways. This had progressed to nervous mumbling and muttering to himself, and eventually to full-on rocking back and forth and chanting to himself, “I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to diiiiiee,” which was, apparently, how the others heard him through the other end of the far wall, opposite from the room’s seemingly only door. 

Then there was an awful _thump_ from the other side of the chamber, resonating through both the room and through Martin’s frazzled nerves, nearly driving him to hysteria for a moment as he convinced himself it had to be Jane taking a new tactic at terrorizing him. As he held his breath in panic, the thump came again, stronger this time, and then again, insistent. His eyes trained on the strange section of the wall, where there was a half-hollowed out archway that seemed to be all boarded up. 

Why hadn’t _he_ thought to try that? Probably because he wasn’t really all that strong and had no hope of doing anything except hurting himself, he thought miserably. Which didn’t even matter anymore, he had thought, because he was certainly about to be descended upon by a million worms and promptly eaten alive. 

Except-- he wasn’t, and the thing that finally burst through the wall and tumbled onto the ground in a heap of wood and splinters wasn’t Jane at all. 

“Hi, Martin!” Tim said brightly, wheezing raggedly and wincing. “Fuck, that hurt! Jesus!” 

_“Tim??”_ Martin gasped, shocked, standing up so quickly it made his head spin. 

Through the jagged hole he’d broken through, Sasha and Jon peered in behind him. 

“Martin!!” Sasha exclaimed, stepping through it and over Tim’s crumpled form to bound up to his side and scoop him up in a big hug. “You’re okay!! Oh, thank goodness!!” 

“I am? --I mean, h- haha, I am! Huh- How-- How did you guys even find me??” Martin stammered incredulously, weak with relief as Sasha squeezed the living daylights out of him. Behind him, Jon was busy prying Tim up off of the ground and fussing over a few scrapes on his arm, grumbling complaints about recklessness while Tim cheerfully shrugged off every single one of them. Of course, Martin hugged Sasha back for all he was worth, a wave of fierce fondness for his friends sweeping over him. 

“What do you mean, how did we find you? We heard you having a panic attack on the other side of the wall, obviously,” Tim said, brushing splinters of wood off of his shirt. Jon gingerly plucked one out of Tim’s hair. 

“Okay, but-- never mind,” Martin shook his head as Sasha released him. “That’s not important. You guys, I-- there’s a, um-- just… just look,” Martin said, pointing to the other end of the chamber. His friends followed his instruction, and promptly fell silent. 

“...Oh my god,” Sasha whispered at length, horrified. 

They stepped a little closer, tentatively peering over to where the skeleton lay, the books surrounding it. 

“Yeah,” Martin said back quietly. “So… apparently someone has died down here,” he said and gave a nervous little laugh. 

“Jesus,” Tim muttered. “Who could this possibly be?” he wondered aloud, “what-- god, what _happened?”_

“Whoever they are, from the looks of it they’ve been dead for quite some time,” Jon said dryly. “What, er… What concerns me most--” 

“Aside from the literal human skeleton??” Tim interjected. 

“--Are the books,” Jon finished. 

“Right…,” Sasha mumbled. “Who _was_ this person, some sort of spooky tunnel librarian? Why are there so many books here?” 

She reached out to pick one up, and Martin quickly grabbed her hand. 

“Don’t touch them,” he said hurriedly. 

Jon fixed Martin with a strange, knowing look all of a sudden, making Martin shiver a little in unease. Meanwhile, Sasha’s eyes widened in surprise. 

“Wh-- Why not?” She asked. 

“Sasha… It’s-- those books are…” Martin started nervously. “They’re not right, I- I don’t know how to explain it, I went to look at one earlier while I was trapped in here and-- I got the strangest feeling…” 

Jon reached down suddenly, and when he straightened up he was holding a faded, bent scrap of paper in his hands. “Look at this,” he said. 

He held it out for the others to see. It was a library bookplate, presumably having fallen out of one of the books. 

_From the Library of Jurgen Leitner,_ it read. 

“I’ve… I’ve seen this before,” Jon said quietly, so very quietly. “A long time ago, now… in a book given to me by… a- a strange man… a book that… I- I, um…” his eyes went unfocused for a moment, and he shuddered. 

The other three of them eyed the name on the paper, and then the skeleton, and then Jon, who was becoming very, very pale. 

“Let’s just get out of this room,” Jon murmured shakily. 

No one had any complaints about that. Now that they’d found a way to circumvent the room’s only real door being guarded by a monster, they ducked through the hole in the boards that Tim had made and left the room behind them. 

They were close. They were terrifyingly close, now. 

* * *

“So… Go over all this for me again, will you,” Jon asked Martin as the four of them walked. 

“Sure,” Martin mumbled. “After we got… separated, Jane chased me, and she kept chasing me until I reached a dead end corridor, I- I opened a random door and locked myself in to get away from her. Inside was that skeleton, and those books… I went to pick one up and examine it, but I-- I suddenly got this feeling, like the book was-- like it wanted t--”

“Yes, yes, I _saw_ the books, I was _there_ for that,” Jon groused. He still shuddered at the memory of it, haunted as he always was by the specter of _A Guest for Mr. Spider._ Of course he knew about the books. They’d nearly ruined his life, once. 

“I meant the _rest_ of it,” Jon said. “Just from after we got separated.” 

“R- Right,” Martin mumbled, shrinking a little. “I… I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine,” Jon said flatly. 

“No, I mean…” Martin started, looking anxiously down at the ground and slowing to a stop. “I’m sorry I left you.” 

There was a moment of stunned silence on Jon’s part. 

“...What?” 

“I- I thought you were behind me, I wasn’t watching close enough,” said Martin miserably. “Oh, I feel like such an idiot, after-- you know, after we got separated from Tim and Sasha the first time, a- and the worms attacked us, and you-- and you fell and hurt your leg, you told me, ‘thanks for coming back for me, that was very brave of you.’ A- And there I go, messing it all up again,” Martin said, staring down forlornly. 

“Oh, Martin…” Jon murmured. 

“I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I-- I would never leave you on purpose, I was so scared for you,” Martin said disconsolately. “God, m- my only comfort was in knowing that if she was standing outside the door waiting to kill me, then I knew you had to have gotten away… I can’t believe I did that, I’m an idiot-- I’m a coward, is what I am,” he despaired. 

“Martin--” Jon started. 

“You called me brave and I _ran away,”_ Martin all but sobbed. “I ran away, and I-- I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” 

_“Martin,”_ Jon said firmly. At last Martin raised his eyes to look at him, all full of tears and terror, and Jon’s heart broke for him. 

There was a brief hesitation, and then Jon wrapped his arms around Martin, burying his face in his shoulder. Martin was frozen for another moment, and then he gave a little sniffle and held onto Jon as tightly as he possibly could, as if that could undo the fear and the separation, like he never wanted to be apart from him again. Martin’s shoulders shook silently, and Jon ached with protectiveness and affection for him. 

“It’s not your fault,” Jon murmured. “Martin, it’s _not_ your fault. You didn’t _leave_ me, we-- we were scared, alright?” 

“Alright,” Martin said shakily. 

“It’s not your fault we got separated,” Jon said. “And that doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that we’re all back together now.” 

“Awwwww,” Sasha said, grinning. 

“Wow, how sappy,” Tim said jokingly. “I’m gonna get cavities just from standing near them.” 

“Oh, you shush, look at them, they’re having a moment,” Sasha said excitedly. 

“You’re really not helping,” Jon mumbled into Martin’s shoulder. Martin couldn’t help but laugh a little, running his hand over Jon’s back and smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt. 

“And how unlike Jon, to actually _initiate_ a gesture of affection, instead of just having them _happen_ to him and getting all grumpy about it,” Sasha said teasingly. “Really, I’m shocked. I guess being menaced by evil worms really makes you change your outlook about stuff.” 

“Will you people stop bullying me? I’m _trying_ to have a heart-to-heart with Martin,” Jon grumbled, reluctantly stepping away from him. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m allowed to have feelings upon occasion. Shocking, I know.” 

“Really, though, why does everybody get to hug Martin today except me, apparently?” Tim pouted. “Totally unfair.” 

“That’s probably because you’re holding the fire extinguisher,” Sasha pointed out. 

“Oh, yeah,” Tim agreed, glancing down at it. “And the reason for that being…?” 

“Er-- right,” Jon said. He and his friends exchanged glances. 

Martin had insisted on bringing it. He’d gotten tired from carrying it, and so it had been passed off to Tim, but Martin had been absolutely adamant that they could not simply leave it behind. 

“So, then, Martin, you were explaining to us why you think this is going to stop the worms?” Jon said, a quizzical look on his face. 

“R- Right,” Martin said, wiping his eyes a little sheepishly. “Well… When I was trapped in that room, some worms started coming under the door. And I tried to just stomp on them, but they kept squirming in, faster and faster, and I started to panic a little,” he said with a nervous little laugh. “So I… started looking around, reaching for something I could use to stop them, or maybe something to put in front of the door so they couldn’t come through anymore? --And this fire extinguisher was just, uh, lying there on the ground,” he said. 

“So you… fire extinguished… the worms,” Jon said slowly. 

“Yes,” Martin agreed, acutely aware of how absolutely ridiculous it sounded out of context. 

Jon frowned at him, and Martin’s face burned. 

“...I see,” Jon said. 

“And… you say they just… died on the spot?” Tim asked. 

“They did, they hated it!” Martin agreed. “Th- They didn’t even come anymore after the first time! So that’s-- uh-- how I discovered the worms’ weakness,” he concluded. 

“So… our new plan for beating Jane…” Sasha started, “is that we’re just going to… what, extinguish her? I mean, she’s not a _fire.”_

“Well, when you put it that way it sounds absurd, but…” 

Jon shrugged. “No, I believe you,” he said. “We’ve already covered that stabbing her is out of the question, so…” 

“And, I mean, to be fair,” Tim said, “once again, if you sprayed, like, a normal human person with that, it would still not be great for their health, so either way… I mean, if it’s true that the _worms_ don’t like it, then…” 

“...Yeah, okay, you’re right, I suppose so,” Sasha said. “Right, so we’re gonna do this, then. We have the worms’ weakness. Great work, Martin.” 

So that was their _new_ plan. 

It was marginally better than their old plan. It was also all they had. They had no choice but to hope that it would be enough. 

* * *

This is the way the final confrontation was going to play out: 

Jon would lead the way, guided by something unseen, grasping furiously at the nebulous threads of premonition that had pulled him along thus far. This would work perfectly fine up until the point where it led them into an ambush, and then they would be chased relentlessly by a horrible tide of worms, far too quick and far too numerous to contend with head on lest they be drowned and overcome by sheer force. They would be herded deeper and deeper into the tunnels like lambs fleeing slaughter until they had nowhere left to run, and then at last they would find themselves exactly where Jane wanted them. 

The sound of their hurried footsteps echoed through the tunnels as they ran, their breathing ragged and pained. “Dead end!” Sasha exclaimed in dismay from the lead. 

“Shit!” Tim said as they turned the corner into a place where the corridor opened up into a featureless chamber. They whirled around, and Tim’s fingers tightened on the fire extinguisher. They looked between each other, wild-eyed and desperate. 

“Wait-- wait,” Jon gasped. “The worms. They’ve stopped.” 

Their unfathomably numerous pursuers did not cross the threshold into the chamber after them. A moment of thick silence enveloped them. 

“Why are they--?” Martin started. 

“They’re waiting for her,” Jon said in a low tone, almost without meaning to. Suddenly his eyes grew wide. “O- Oh, god, here we go. This is it.” 

He’d seen this room before. 

This was the birthplace of the hive, the very epicenter of the waking nightmare they’d been fighting this whole time. Indeed, he had seen it in his dream. The image of Jane kneeling before the nest, her arm buried up to the shoulder in its pulp, the visceral memory of the-- the _song,_ the horrible, breathtaking song of the wretched thing, enveloping him and threatening to choke him, smother him… Jon felt it deep within him, within his bones, starting in the pit of his stomach and coursing through every inch of him: an ice-hot rush of a fear that went deeper than fear, a nearly all-consuming dread, pervasive and endless and unstoppable, and somehow… achingly, desperately familiar. 

In the nightmare, this chamber had housed the hive, a fat, sprawling thing of honeycombed pulp and malice. In the waking world, it was now absent-- because Jane had _become_ the hive, had been consumed by it and warped, no-- _corrupted_ into something far beyond herself. Jon trembled with understanding. 

This was the throne room. It was time to face the queen. 

There came the resounding echo of her footsteps from down the corridor as she began to approach, with slow, deliberate steps, and Jon and his friends held their breath, paralyzed with fear. The worms began to separate in her wake. This was it. There was nowhere left to run, nowhere left to hide. 

And then, there she was, the Hive, the Corruption-- Jane, final and only-- the dying corpse of Jon’s own friend. The thing that wasn’t truly Jane anymore made a sound that might have been a laugh, wheezing and empty and humorless. 

“I see you,” she intoned with difficulty, slow and singsong, like a cat having cornered its prey. 

Then she lunged, and everything erupted into chaos. 

For Jane, the end would be swift, it was violent and tumultuous. Her first move, tactical and unexpected, was to divest Tim of his weapon-- she threw herself at him, there was a rapid, frantic whirlwind of a struggle, and ultimately the fire extinguisher went clanging to the floor, rolling away. Tim writhed violently to escape her grip, and Sasha lunged for her with a vengeance, grabbing a fistful of her oily black hair and pulling. This had the intended effect in so far as she released Tim, who lurched unsteadily and collapsed; however, it did mean that she immediately turned her retaliation upon Sasha, and body-slammed her with the clumsy force of her weight. 

“Martin, the extinguisher!” Jon yelled, panicked. 

Martin’s head snapped around towards where he’d heard it hit the ground, and gasped in dismay. “I-- I can’t-- it’s covered in worms!!” 

“Damn it!!” Jon exclaimed. Martin darted in to drag Tim back to his feet. The extinguisher, of course, had rolled past the threshold and now lay among the twisting silver shapes beyond, which was just their luck. Jon hissed under his breath and turned back to contend with Jane and Sasha. 

“Oh, you big baby,” Tim wheezed, swaying unsteadily. “You’re gonna let a few worms stop you after all this?” He said to Martin, who sputtered in confusion which turned to panic as Tim surged forward to make a grab at the extinguisher. 

Jane whirled to face Jon-- and for a tiny fraction of a moment, she stopped, hesitating. “I’m sorry,” Jon mumbled hurriedly-- he reared back his fist and swung. She made an awful hissing sound as it connected, her skin way too spongy and yielding under the force of his blow. Jon recoiled, half in disgust and half in something else, nameless. 

Behind them, Tim let out a sharp hiss. “I got it!” He exclaimed. “Fuck!” There was another loud metallic _thump._

Jon felt a twist of fear in his gut for Tim’s safety and instinctively cast a glance back to see what was going on; however, Jane immediately seized the opportunity to retaliate against Jon, and he let out a startled gasp as he felt her hands wrap around his throat, trying to choke him. 

_“Hey!!”_ Sasha exclaimed. She took a staggering step forward to intervene, but Jane was wary from the last time she had done as much, and she released Jon with a sharp shove; he stumbled forward, and Martin quickly moved to steady him. Jon inhaled a ragged breath; now he saw Tim’s bleeding hand, his wild eyes. True to his word, he had wrested the extinguisher from the worms, although it now lay spattered with blood on the stone floor of the chamber. 

Sasha tried to take a swing at Jane, which was interrupted by Jane jabbing her in the stomach with her knee. She let out a pained wheeze, and then Jane went one step further and kicked her away with as much force as she could muster; Sasha went tumbling back and crumpled to a heap on the floor. 

Martin’s eyes darted rapidly between Sasha’s dazed form, the figure of Jane advancing upon her menacingly, and the metal canister on the ground a few feet away. He felt frozen with blind panic for an agonizing instant-- but-- suddenly, he had an idea. 

“Sasha!” He exclaimed, and surged forward to kick the extinguisher in her direction. 

The extinguisher half-rolled, half-skidded forward and thumped to a stop against Sasha’s side, and her eyes went wide with understanding. 

With fumbling hands she gripped it and held it up as Jane loomed over her, ominous and hissing, all but trembling with hate. For a daft moment, Sasha thought of those emergency fire PSAs they did at school. _Pull, Aim, Squeeze, Sweep,_ it went. So she did. 

They would never forget the scream. 

For a moment, Jane stiffened up, going rigid as Sasha relentlessly, frantically doused her with the CO2 gas, and then they heard it: an ear-splitting wail that sounded like it began deep in Jane’s chest and ended somewhere within the wretched, writhing forms of the silver worms as a thousand things without mouths cried out as one. For Jon, to hear it felt simultaneously like the terror and grief of everything they had felt as they’d fought their way through in this investigation all being poured out into a single moment, and like-- like the sound of a thousand knives over a chalkboard, like grinding the inside of his skull against asphalt, like violently unstitching the threads that held them together and piercing his eardrums with a thousand needles. He choked back a scream of his own, paralyzed. 

After what felt like an eternity, Jane finally staggered back. She made a wild, jerking motion, clutching at her chest. She shuddered violently, and then-- 

It was a horrible sight to behold. Worms tore violently out of her body with alarming speed, as if they were trying to escape the fate of their host. They were wrenching themselves free only to squirm frantically upon the stone floor another moment before they inevitably perished, curled lifelessly in heaps atop each other as they too succumbed to their fate. It was a terrifying thing to watch-- but of course, Jon couldn’t tear his eyes away, not until the thing that wasn’t Jane anymore heaved and convulsed and then collapsed to the floor, and at long last became still. 

The chamber was silent, save for the heavy, ragged sound of their breathing. Jon’s pulse thundered behind his eyes, rattling through his shuddering ribcage. 

“We did it,” Sasha wheezed at last from the floor, panting and wide-eyed. “We… We did it.” 

For another long moment no one dared to move, no one had the strength to do anything but heave deep breath after deep breath and stare silently. No one moved until the fear finally subsided into numbness, into weak, shaky relief in the quiet terror of their victory, hard-won and heavy. 

For a moment, they just allowed themselves to breathe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so… holy Shit, this chapter. I’ve been so excited for this. I stepped out of my comfort zone a little bit with it and I think it really paid off-- I’m so so proud of it and I hope you enjoyed this update. There’s just one more chapter to go in this arc, so… see you all next week :)


	19. Chapter 19

Tim let out a quiet hiss of discomfort as Jon wrapped the bandage around his hand. 

“I’m gonna have trouble coming up with a fun excuse for this one,” Tim said jokingly, grinning through the discomfort, and Jon frowned at him. 

“You’re  _ sure  _ none of the worms burrowed inside?” Jon said again. 

“No, they didn’t,” Tim confirmed. 

“Crazy of you to just stick your hand in a pile of evil flesh-worms,” Sasha teased weakly from where she was sitting against the stone wall of the chamber, catching her breath. She was clutching her shoulder, trying not to let the pain show on her face. 

“Yeah, well,” Tim mumbled, “not that I had that much of a choice, did I?” 

“I think she’s trying to say that was brave of you, going after the extinguisher like that,” Martin volunteered, and Sasha gave a little nod. Tim’s expression softened for a moment. 

“Either way,” Tim continued, “they sure as hell  _ bit  _ me, if I can even call it that, but I, uh… I shook them off before they could get buried in too deep. It’s really fine, Jon.” 

Jon continued to look unconvinced, his face pinched with worry. 

“Is anyone else hurt?” Jon asked. 

Martin shook his head. “Just… pretty rattled, but that’s all,” he said. 

“Nothing’s bleeding, though I’m a little banged up,” Sasha admitted. She stretched out her arm experimentally and winced. “Jesus, I’m gonna be sore tomorrow,” she joked, and Jon forced himself to smile for her, a thin, tight-lipped thing. 

“Right,” Jon mumbled. 

“Jon, how’s your leg?” Martin asked. 

“It’s fine,” Jon said. “Don’t worry about it.” It still hurt, but he could manage. He’d had worse. 

Still, he felt an odd, lingering pang of anxiety, a feeling of something yet left undone, but… there was no readily apparent cause to pin it to, and so he tried to push it aside. 

It was fine. Probably. 

“What-- oh, hell, I almost don’t want to know-- what time is it?” Jon asked. 

Martin reluctantly fished his phone out of his bag. “...Jesus. Umm… Let’s just say we’re probably not going to be making it home in time for dinner.” 

“That’s… not great,” Tim remarked, a flicker of unease crossing his face. 

Sasha heaved an exhausted sigh. “Of course,” she said. “And now we still have to find our way back  _ out.”  _

“Quite,” Jon said, frowning with distaste. “If everyone’s alright, then, we’d best get going. We’ve got a long trek ahead of us.” He handed the rest of the bandages back to Martin. “Great thinking, bringing first aid supplies along, Martin,” he said. 

Martin just shrugged as he packed them away in his bag. “I figured something was bound to happen eventually.” He moved to offer his hand to Sasha, who took it and hauled herself to her feet. Then they set off, leaving the room and the corridors filled with the motionless corpses of silver worms behind them, the scene of a final battle fought and won.

“Um,” Martin started eventually, apprehensive, “so, I was wondering er… what, if anything, we’re going to do about the, uh… the skeleton we found earlier?” 

“That’s… a fair question,” Sasha murmured, rubbing her injured shoulder. 

“I mean, no-- what are we supposed to do, call the cops?” Tim argued. “That’s not going to help.”

“So, what, we’re just going to pretend we never saw anything?” Martin insisted. 

“We’re good at that, when we have to be,” Tim pointed out, and Martin frowned. 

“I-- I guess…” he said hesitantly. 

“We have no idea how long that thing’s been down here,” Jon pointed out. “Could be decades old, for all we know. Not much to be done about a thing like that.” 

“I… suppose not,” Martin said, still seeming uncertain. 

“It is… worrying, still,” Jon admitted, the anxiety he’d tried to shove down earlier stirring again. “I’m not saying I like it, either, it’s just that I don’t know that there’s anything we can do now except get out of here and hope we never have to see this place again.” 

That was something they were all equally keen to do. They’d had far more than enough of these tunnels. 

They were quiet for much of the long way back. They were… tired, the sort of tired that couldn’t hope to be fixed with a single night’s sleep, weary of mind from carrying around so much fear and tension for as long as they had. The acute terror of their final confrontation had passed-- it should, by all rights, have been over. 

Except-- Sasha kept silently reaching up to rub at her shoulder, as if it still bothered her. 

Except-- Jon found himself unable to shake that bad feeling he had, a prickling, insistent dread tugging at the back of his mind. 

Those two things were not as unrelated as they seemed. 

* * *

“Wait,” Jon said suddenly, and the group came to a halt. 

“Do you hear that?” He whispered after a moment. It was a steady, echoing sound, quick and unfaltering, growing closer as they listened. Footsteps. 

“Someone else is here,” he whispered, and his friends exchanged nervous looks. 

“...If-- if it’s not Jane, and it’s not any of us,” Martin started in a hushed voice, “then--” 

“Do we need to run?” asked Tim. 

They glanced rapidly up and down the corridor, but they were nearing the exit now, and the only other way to go now would be to turn back and retreat deeper into the tunnels. Jon shook his head. “No point,” he mumbled. “Nowhere to go.” 

“So then, what do we…” Martin started to whisper. 

Jon was  _ tired  _ of fleeing and hiding and getting tangled up in the web of this wretched labyrinthian place. Another beat of hesitation and he made up his mind. 

“Hey! Who’s there??” He called out sharply. “Show yourself!!” 

The footsteps paused briefly and then quickened in pace, and for a moment Jon tensed as a figure rounded the corner, rendered a shadowy silhouette at first by the distance in between them. But as they grew closer, the figure’s tall frame, the frantic bob of long curly hair began to register as familiar to him. 

“...Is that--” Jon started as recognition dawned on him. 

_ “Michael??”  _ Sasha exclaimed. 

Sure enough, as he came to a halt before them and paused to catch his breath, holding his phone with the torch function on in one hand and tightly clutching what appeared to be a pocket knife in the other, he gasped out something like, “f- finally found you guys…” 

“Wh- What are you doing here??” Martin asked, baffled. 

“Looking for  _ you!”  _ Michael wheezed crossly, pointing at Sasha. 

“Me??” 

“No, actually, I rather think I should be the one-- what are YOU doing here??” Michael directed at the group. 

“No-- now, wait a minute-- h- how on earth did you even  _ find  _ this place??” Jon stammered. “I- I thought we were the only ones who even knew about it!” 

“You  _ were,”  _ Michael said. “And then I saw  _ you  _ ducking into the storage room at the end of the hall, and then you  _ never came back out,”  _ he said, indicating Sasha, whose eyes widened a bit as she flushed sheepishly. “I was  _ worried,  _ you know that?? I thought you’d gone missing or-- or  _ died  _ or something, I don’t know! I waited up there for  _ hours!” _

“You waited…?” Sasha echoed. 

“Of course I _waited,_ I had to make sure you came back! I thought I was going to have to call the police or something! Jesus!” Michael exclaimed. “Wh- What _is_ this place? What on earth are you four doing down here to begin with--” 

“Look, that’s really none of your business,” Tim interjected stubbornly. 

“Oh, is that so?” Michael challenged, lifting his head defiantly. “Except I think maybe it is.” Jon and his friends exchanged looks. 

There was a certain level of immediate resistance they felt towards the idea of anyone else getting involved in the sort of things they got up to. For one, it was dangerous, and immensely difficult to explain given the nature of the sort of things they made a habit of going after. Secondly-- it had always been just the four of them, together, right from the start. The last time anyone else had found out about their little mystery-solving antics-- well. It had been Elias, of course, and that had not gone well for them. They weren’t used to being challenged like this. 

“No, we don’t have to tell you anything,” Tim insisted after a beat, crossing his arms. “So-- you say you were worried Sasha was gonna get lost and never come back, or whatever-- well, you’ve found her, problem solved. Obviously, she’s perfectly safe, so now you can just…” 

He trailed off when Sasha let out a barely-audible hiss of pain, clutching at her shoulder, and Michael suddenly shuddered, a violent, full-body thing that made his eyes go unfocused for a second. Jon felt another sharp twinge of dread. 

“Sasha,” said Michael in a low tone. “Let me see your arm.” 

“That’s really not--” Tim started to protest, but Michael just ignored him. He shoved his phone in his pocket and approached Sasha, and she reluctantly allowed him to inspect her. 

He scrutinized her from one angle, and then another, and she fidgeted nervously. “Michael, I’m fine,” Sasha tried to insist. 

He circled around behind her, examining her shoulder. “It’s really not a big deal, I- I just fell on it earlier, that’s all,” she mumbled, and Michael just hummed distractedly in response. 

“L- Listen, Michael, I- uh- I appreciate your concern, but--” Sasha started uneasily, “It’s really not that bad or anythi--  _ ow!!  _ What the hell--?” 

Quicker than anyone could react, there was a sharp glint of metal as the tip of his pocket knife flashed out, a brief moment of stammering chaos, exclamations of shock and protest, and… then Michael pulled his hand away, and everyone fell silent. 

Held there was a single silver worm, wriggling pathetically in his grip. 

It writhed desperately in protest, giving another twitching jerk, once, twice, and then it went motionless as it was stripped of its host. Sasha stared at it with round, terrified eyes, and… 

It was like a switch being flipped off. That prickling sense of dread that Jon had been fighting to keep under control-- it died all at once, subsiding into nothing. He stared with mute horror between Sasha and Michael and the worm as understanding slowly slotted into place.

“You were saying?” Michael directed at the group, though for all his bold defiance his face was pale and his hands were shaking. 

“Wh… Wh… Wha…” Sasha stammered, unable to tear her eyes away from the limp form of the worm, paralyzed with shock and horror. 

“Oh my god,” Martin said, eyes wide. “Wh-- When did th… h- h- how could that have…”

“Sasha, you…” Jon said as he turned the realization over in his mind, “at-- the beginning of all this… When she appeared, and you tackled her… and you fell on your shoulder, w- with all the worms everywhere…” 

“Then-- oh, shit, this whole time--” Tim said. 

“I could have  _ died,”  _ Sasha suddenly realized. She looked like she would perhaps have liked to pass out. 

“Right-- so-- will one of you  _ please  _ tell me wh- what in the  _ world  _ is going on, then??” Michael said. Sasha looked at him, and then at her friends as an unspoken agreement passed between them. 

“Alright,” Jon relented. “I… I think we can tell you. As long as you’re not going to make a scene of it. I- If you’re certain you really want to know.” 

Michael did hesitate for just a moment, a sort of faraway look crossing his face. But then he nodded and said, “I suppose I’d better be.” 

“But first, let’s, uh, maybe get out of here?” Martin suggested timidly, and Sasha nodded vigorously in agreement. 

“Right,” Tim mumbled. “So, Michael, don’t you usually ride the bus? How are you getting home?” 

“Oh, I-- huh,” Michael looked away. “I guess I hadn’t really… thought of that.” 

“I can give you a ride,” Tim sighed. “Come on, then, let’s go. We can talk on the way back. It’s time to go home.” 

* * *

Sasha sat up front in the car on the way back, nearly silent for the entire trip, staring blankly out the window. 

“Jon and Martin get to be dropped off first because their parents are the most likely to be mad they’ve been gone so long,” Tim had declared, to which no one had any complaint. 

Jon felt another cold spike of anxiety at the thought of having to face Elias after all of this, a thought which he quickly shoved aside. He didn’t have time to get worked up over that just yet. 

Michael, understandably, had quite a number of questions, and Jon did his best to answer. 

“So-- what  _ was  _ that place?” Michael asked first and foremost. 

“The tunnels? Honestly, we were just as surprised as you were to discover them there,” Jon said. “As you could see, the whole place is sprawling and sort of mazelike. I wouldn’t be surprised if they went on for miles and miles. And before you ask, no, I  _ don’t  _ know why they’re there, or where they all lead, or who built them, for what purpose, et cetera, et cetera.” 

“And… that’s really all you know about them?” Michael said with a frown. “They’re just  _ there?” _

“As far as we can tell, yes,” Jon said. Michael appeared strangely troubled by this, seemingly unsatisfied with Jon’s answer. 

“Then why were you-- no, actually-- what was the story behind that…  _ worm?  _ And you-- mentioned something about a… a fight, o- or a struggle of some kind?” 

“Yes,” Jon sighed. “Of course. Right, here we go. First, answer me this: does the name ‘Jane Prentiss’ mean anything to you?” He asked flatly. 

He was not entirely expecting Michael to answer, given that virtually everyone he had ever asked about her had been unable to do so, but after a moment Michael frowned and said, “sure, now that you mention it.” 

“Wait-- you do know her?” 

“Well, yeah. I mean, I  _ think  _ I know who you’re talking about. Long black hair, right, wears a lot of red? Kind of tall?” Michael elaborated, all accurate details. “I’m pretty sure I had math class with her, but she must have transferred out or something, I- I haven’t seen her around in a while now. Why?” 

Which… struck Jon as strange, for a moment. 

But then, he also had to remember that Michael was nowhere near as normal as he appeared, either. That Michael had seemingly appeared in this world without warning, with almost no one the wiser-- versus Jane’s disappearance from the world, all but unnoticed by all but the four of them… that the first moment Jon laid eyes on him, that quiet little whisper in his mind had spoken up, had told him he wasn’t human, right from the beginning-- versus the violent horror of Jane’s becoming, a struggle she’d fought and lost, a mystery that’d had to be relentlessly unravelled… 

He saw it. He didn’t know what it meant, but he saw it. 

His head hurt for a moment as he tried to put the pieces together, tried to see how it was all meant to connect, but-- well. In the present of the real world, Michael was staring at him with a funny expression, waiting for Jon to respond, and so he had no choice but to set that line of ponderance aside. 

“...Well,” Jon said hesitatingly, aware that he had already paused a beat too long, “so, the thing is… hmm. How shall I put this, then… the… er, it’s…” 

“She turned into some sort of living flesh-hive,” Tim said flatly. 

“O- Oh,” Michael said, visibly blanching at the mental image that conjured up. 

“Yeahhh,” Tim said sympathetically. “That’s where that worm was from. There were hundreds of them. Hollowed her out, made a monster out of her. Horrible sight to behold, really.” 

“Y- Yes, that,” Jon said, wincing a little. “She… began to exhibit some-- worrying behavior, talked a lot about some sort of infestation that no one could see but herself, until one day I saw her disappear into those tunnels. Then she, uh… m- made some threats, I suppose you could say, and the four of us have been-- trying to track her down and investigate, or, well…” He trailed off for a moment, an odd look on his face. 

“We were trying to stop her,” Jon said in conclusion. “And-- we did. It’s over now. Neither Jane nor those worms are going to be hurting anyone else. We made sure of that.” 

“Except… one of the worms… managed to get to Sasha,” Michael ventured. “The worms that, what-- possessed Jane Prentiss, or killed her, o- or whatever you say it was. Burrowed into her shoulder.” 

“Correct,” Jon said. 

“Michael,” Sasha finally spoke up from the front seat, her voice quiet. “I don’t know how you knew what you knew, but… I think you just saved my life.” 

Michael was quiet for a moment as he processed. 

“And you’re… sure none of them got into any of the rest of you?” He asked eventually.

Sasha glanced uneasily at Tim, his bandaged hand, but Jon said, “no, I’m certain. That was the only one. We’re safe now.” 

“How do you know that?” Michael insisted, worried. 

He couldn’t know that, is the thing. He shouldn’t have been able to know that for sure, and that should have worried Jon more than it did. Except… the weight of that fear and dread he had carried with him as they made their way back out, it had died along with the worm that’d infected Sasha-- and with it came a strange sense of finality, a certainty that that was the only one that’d escaped his sight, a neutralized threat. He shivered a little. He couldn’t know that, but he did. 

“You’re just going to have to take his word for it,” Martin spoke up for him after a beat. “It’s not really something we’re able to explain, but if Jon says they’re gone, then they’re gone.” 

“...Very well,” Michael said after a moment. “If you say so.” He gave Jon a strange look, peering into his eyes like he thought he might find something there if only he looked deep enough, an odd expression on his face. 

It was a look that Jon recognized at this point, having worn it so often himself; cryptic and distant, somewhere in the gap between confusion and recognition. Trying to put the pieces together, pull the seams into place, coming up frustratingly empty-handed-- a patchwork of gaps, a shadowy whole with too many unknown variables to  _ make  _ anything of. 

It was a look that said,  _ where do you fit in?  _ It said,  _ what are you, really?  _

Jon didn’t have the answer to that. He didn’t know, and that bothered him. He turned his eyes away, and the rest of the car ride was largely silent. 

* * *

Before long they reached their first destination. Martin was the first to leave, and soon enough it was Jon’s turn to go. They pulled up to Jon’s house, and he said his farewells to his friends as he got out of the car. 

There he stood for another moment, hesitating as he heard the sound of Tim’s car driving away behind him, lingering in the cold November air and the darkness of the evening. It lent a sense of finality to his long-late arrival, proof that time had marched on with little concern for his own ultimately irrelevant struggles.

For the sake of his nerves he had been thus far trying  _ not  _ to imagine that perhaps there might be consequences to spending all day traipsing around in the apparently monster-infested tunnels beneath the school, but… here he was. 

He stared at his front door. He took a deep breath in, out, steeling himself, and then he turned the handle. 

Unsurprisingly, he found Elias waiting for him in the living room. He had the TV on, which is how Jon knew immediately that there was no chance that his unusual lateness had gone unnoticed by his guardian, because Elias did not actually  _ watch  _ TV. Thus, he seemed to be making an effort to at least  _ pretend  _ that he wasn’t simply waiting for Jon to get home; he was sitting on the couch with a sort of forced nonchalance, deliberately not turning to look in Jon’s direction immediately as he walked in the door. 

No use delaying the inevitable. Jon slung his backpack down by the front door, tugged off his fraying jacket, and went straight to him. 

“Hi,” Jon mumbled, fidgeting nervously as he stared down at his feet. “I, er… I’m back.” 

“Hello, Jon,” Elias returned in an equally stiff greeting, finally looking up at him. After a beat of hesitation, he indicated the couch beside him and said, “why don’t you have a seat,” in a way that was less of a request and more of a command. 

So Jon did as he said, folding himself anxiously into as small a space as he could and trying to analyze his tone to decide whether or not he was going to be upset. 

There was another moment of silence, and Jon glanced over at Elias. He had a clipboard in his lap. Whatever page he had ostensibly been working on was mostly blank, save for a puddle of dark, long-dry ink where his pen had been pressed motionless against the page. 

“So… What are you up to?” Jon tentatively asked after a moment. 

Elias glanced at the TV, and then frowned down at his clipboard. He shook his head. “Nothing important,” he mumbled. 

“...I see,” Jon said. 

Another uncomfortable beat of quiet followed. “Jon, where…” Elias started, and then paused, reassessing.  _ “How,”  _ he said eventually, “have you been?” 

Jon found himself strangely caught off-guard by the question for a moment, and he laughed a little, nervous and bitter. 

“Bad,” he decided, offering his guardian a miserable little smile. 

Elias sighed. “I was afraid you would say that.” 

“Is it that obvious?” Jon mumbled. 

“You’ve been acting… different, lately,” Elias remarked. “Quieter, more tired. Lost in thought more often than not. Not to mention you’ve… been out late more and more recently.” 

“I know,” Jon said in a small voice. 

Of course, ostensibly he’d been ‘studying at Sasha’s house’ lately, which was what he’d told him back at the beginning of all this, but… he supposed that excuse only went so far, and it certainly didn’t cover  _ this.  _

“You are  _ aware  _ you can’t just go wherever you please without at least letting me  _ know  _ you’re going to be home late, Jon,” Elias said in a carefully controlled tone, though the tension in his posture and the tightness of his grip on his pen betrayed his frustration. “Just disappearing all afternoon every day like you’ve been-- surely you must have known that would not go unnoticed.” 

“Are you… going to be mad at me?” Jon suddenly asked, because he didn’t know if he could handle it if he was. By this point, he didn’t think there was much more he could take. 

“Should I be?” Elias countered. 

_ Yes,  _ Jon thought, because even though he was aware logically that what he and his friends had been doing-- sneaking around in the tunnels, fighting another monster-- had felt like their only choice, even though he was aware that it was what had to be done to prevent anyone else from coming to harm… he still felt an awful sense of guilt over it all the same. 

“I don’t know,” is what Jon said, a lie. His voice wavered a little bit, and Elias frowned as he looked Jon over, dissecting the state he was in with an unnerving scrutiny that Jon really should have been more used to by now. 

“I’m… hm. Let’s just say I’m concerned,” Elias said carefully, which made Jon feel decidedly worse, because Jon knew that he meant it. 

“Just a few days ago was your  _ birthday,  _ and the only thing you wanted to do when you got home was go straight to your room and go to bed,” Elias said. “Yet when I saw you the next morning, you looked like you could’ve slept for a thousand years and not been any less exhausted.” 

“I didn’t sleep very well, I… I had a nightmare…” Jon explained weakly. “A- And I’d already had a pretty rough time…” 

“Which, by all means, you would still appear to be having,” Elias pointed out. “You’ve certainly not gotten any better. Here you are now, home late and looking like you’ve been emotionally beat to hell and back-- you want to know if I’m  _ mad?  _ At this point, you rather look like if I were to so much as  _ blink  _ disapprovingly in your direction, you’d fall apart. You must understand why that would be… worrying, for me, to-- to see you like that.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jon said with a quiet sincerity that caught in his throat. 

“Jon, are you alright?” Elias asked. 

“I… I’m fine, or-- I’m  _ going  _ to be fine,” Jon assured him wearily. “That is… The worst of it should be, uh, over now.” 

“What… happened?” Elias asked tentatively. “It seems like you’ve had quite the week.” 

“That’s a fair assessment,” Jon mumbled. 

“Do you want to talk about it? Has something been going on at school?” 

That actually earned a wry little smile from Jon despite everything, what with how unintentionally apt it was. “I suppose you could say that,” he sighed.

He wracked his mind for a way to frame it that was true but not too true, a way to make something presentable out of this mess. He needed something that wouldn’t only make his guardian more upset and worried. He fumbled for a way to soften the wicked edges of the horror of it all, and felt a dull twist of hurt in his chest when he found it. 

“I guess you could say I, sort of… lost a friend,” is what he said at length, his voice quiet. 

“I see,” Elias murmured sympathetically. “You had a fight, then, I take it? Or, have  _ been  _ fighting, I suppose?” 

Jon snorted. “Oh, yes,” he agreed, a twinge of something bitter and sad in his voice. That was true for him in a different, much more literal sense, but… Elias didn’t need to know that. 

“I’ve been… trying to resolve things,” Jon continued, “but it just kept getting worse and worse, and I-- we all got in way over our heads… Kept me up at night, really, trying to figure out how I was going to sort things out, and… I- I don’t know. It got-- bad, up near the end, these last couple days. I can’t say I’m  _ surprised  _ that it all ended the way it did, really, but…” Jon shook his head. “But it did. It’s all over and done with now. And here we are,” he said, trying to allow himself to take a deep breath and release some of the tension from his shoulders.

“If you don’t mind my asking, who, er…” Elias started apprehensively. 

“Oh, it’s-- uh, it wasn’t Sasha or Tim or Martin I had a fight with or anything, n- no one you know,” Jon said quickly. “Or Gerry…” 

“Frankly, Jon, I wasn’t aware you  _ had  _ any other friends,” Elias joked weakly, and Jon actually smiled for a moment before his expression soured again. 

“Yeah, well. Neither was I,” Jon admitted. “It’s complicated. I- I don’t really want to talk about it. If that’s alright.” 

“Of course,” Elias murmured understandingly. 

Jon paused and then said, “No, you know what-- I  _ do  _ have other friends, actually, you rude man,” and Elias gave him a teasing look. “Against all odds and despite my best efforts. Shocking, I know-- much to my infinite horror, people keep deciding to be friends with me.” 

“Ah, I know the feeling,” Elias agreed, amused. Then he glanced away, getting this distant look on his face and frowning a little, like he was remembering something bittersweet. He shook his head. “I really am sorry to hear that. It’s obviously been… very hard on you.” 

“Well,” Jon mumbled, “at the very least, it’s all over now.” 

“No more of this, now,” Elias said, a little more firmly. “I expect you to be home in a more timely manner in the future. Understood?” 

“Alright,” Jon agreed weakly. “I-- I will be.” 

Elias nodded, and then glanced down at his watch. “Well,” he said, “now that I know you’re not out there doing god knows what and getting into mischief or danger or worse, then… if it’s all the same to you, I think I’m going to call it a night a little early.” 

Jon felt a twist of remorse in his chest at that. “I’m… sorry for staying out so late and making you worried, I really am,” Jon murmured. “I don’t  _ mean  _ to make you worry, I just… things got out of hand, I-- I’m sorry.” 

Elias stood up, setting his clipboard to the side and turning off the TV. “If it’s of any consolation, I do that whether you give me a reason to worry or not,” he said, an odd smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Always have. It’s my job.” 

Jon smiled an embarrassed little smile. “I suppose.” 

“But-- to your credit, for the most part, you’ve always been a good kid,” Elias continued. “You don’t  _ often  _ give me any cause for consternation, er-- having your bones stolen notwithstanding and all.” 

Which… mostly just made Jon feel quietly miserable, because what he had been doing today and in these last few weeks had been very much on par with that. It made him feel like a liar, deceiving Elias like this, but-- he turned his face away quickly to hide the flash of guilt that went through him, mumbling something noncommittal in reply. 

Because-- so long ago when Jon came away from his encounter with  _ A Guest for Mr. Spider  _ and gotten so completely drawn into this web of mysteries and monsters, when Jon came away from his encounter with the Boneturner all battered and bruised and terrified, he had made his guardian a promise, one he had inevitably found himself unable to keep. 

Because-- lying to Elias was hard, in that… either Jon would try to do so and Elias would just give him that  _ look,  _ like he was looking right through him, would pluck the truth right out of his skull and hold it up for them both to see… or, more often, he would just  _ believe  _ him, take his word on faith alone, which always felt so much worse for the simple betrayal of it all. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon mumbled once again, the words spilling out of his throat before he could stop himself. 

Elias, misunderstanding, just gave him a strange look, something careful and patient. 

“I really am just relieved to know you’re alright,” Elias reassured him. And then, gently, “get some rest, Jon.” 

“I… okay,” Jon murmured, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “Okay, I… I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight.” 

So… he got himself ready for bed and went to his room, weakly relieved that it hadn’t gone worse with Elias, that it hadn’t gone worse with  _ Jane,  _ that it was all finally, finally over. They’d made it through-- scared and tired and heavy of heart, yes, but alive, and that was what mattered. They hadn’t been able to save her, but no one else’d had to get hurt. 

Yes, she was gone, but Jon allowed himself to hope, perhaps naively, that she would have been able to find some measure of peace in being  _ known  _ in the end-- that she hadn’t simply vanished without a trace, with no one left to mourn her absence at all. She hadn’t simply faded into a distant, unknown memory, a mystery left unloved and unsolved-- Jon had certainly made sure of  _ that.  _ His heart hurt to think that it was all he could offer her in the end, but… she had still  _ mattered,  _ to him and to all of them. He liked to believe, perhaps foolishly, that the weight of that was still  _ worth  _ something in the grand scheme of things, small as it was. He had to allow himself to accept that he’d done all he could, and hope that it was enough. 

He collapsed into bed at last, and exhaustion washed over him. 

His sleep was dark and dreamless, unburdened by the nightmares and worrying and dread of the previous nights, or perhaps simply too deep to register anything except quiet oblivion for once. 

He’d earned that much, he supposed, if he was being gentle with himself. He supposed, finally, he could be allowed to rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “See you all next week!” said I, a fool. Sorry this chapter’s a little late! Some stuff came up for both myself and my beta, but yknow, oh well. 
> 
> (I Do think Elias isn't,,, too terribly pleased with Jon, especially at first, however, I also think he has enough brain cells in his head to realize that getting angry at a child who's visibly on the verge of a breakdown is not the right way to handle things, lol.) 
> 
> At any rate, thus concludes arc 1 of the story. Thank you all so, so much for sticking with it this far, and thank you to everyone who has left kudos or encouraging comments along the way-- it means a lot to me! I’ve got some fun stuff planned for arc 1 interlude (for one Jon finally gets to catch a break because boy howdy he needs one), and I’m very excited for what’s to come. Until next time :)


	20. Chapter 20

Jon made the apparently grievous mistake of being the last one awake the next morning, which gave everyone else time to plot against him. 

He took his time getting up that morning. It was a Saturday, and he had been so exhausted for what felt like far too long-- and as far as he _knew,_ he hadn’t had anything special to be doing that day. However, as soon as he was fully awake and dressed and all, Elias reminded him that they had errands to run; namely, that he’d promised to take Jon to go get a new jacket. 

So they went, and Jon took his time picking out a suitable one, and then once he’d decided he’d spent long enough browsing and made his selection, Elias simply said, _oh, Jon, didn’t you say you needed gloves as well?--_ and insisted that he might as well get some while they were there. 

Jon had never mentioned anything about gloves to Elias. He’d said as much offhandedly to Martin while on a walk, what felt like eons ago now, but he’d never said anything to Elias. Nevertheless, he just made a mental note of the discrepancy, filed it away to be dealt with never, and complied with only a minor grumble of protest, as was his nature. Then they spent another who knows how long scrutinizing the contents of the gloves section. 

When Jon had finally chosen an acceptable pair and decided they’d wasted enough time in this store, Elias, of course, suggested they go and look at scarves, and Jon said, _no, thanks, I’d like to go home if it’s all the same to you._

They still ended up getting a scarf. 

(A rather nice one, really, despite Jon’s protests that he didn’t need it; it was made of a pleasant, faintly shimmering fabric in a lovely shade of rich emerald green that Elias absolutely insisted went well with his eyes. Which, Jon had to admit, it did.) 

After what felt like a truly ridiculous amount of time, they had finally gotten home, and Jon was more-or-less intending to spend the rest of the day doing nothing. Maybe he’d fix himself a cup of tea and read for a while, he thought, something quiet and easy. 

This day had other plans for him, however, which he was soon to discover as he stepped through the front door and was immediately greeted by a loud exclamation of “SURPRISE!!!” 

Jon bristled like a startled cat and stumbled back in shock for a moment, bumping into Elias. It was then that Jon registered the voices as belonging to his friends-- and also registered the fact that their house had been strewn with paper streamers and a really unnecessary number of balloons-- and then he caught on. 

“How _dare_ you,” Jon huffed indignantly, and Tim, who stood proudly at the front of the group, just beamed. 

“Happy late birthday, Jon!” Sasha said from beside him, grinning widely. “Since we, you know, _forgot_ earlier and all--” 

“--We thought it was only fair to throw you a party!” Tim concluded cheerfully. 

“You are absolutely unbelievable, how did you-- wh- when did you even _plan_ all this?” Jon sputtered. “Y- You’re lucky it took Elias and I so long to get done with our errands, or else I have no idea how you could _possibly_ have…” 

“Bold of you to assume he wasn’t in on it,” Tim said, grinning mischievously. 

“I was in on it,” Elias confirmed, seeming insufferably pleased with himself. 

“I’m surrounded by traitors,” Jon declared, although a genuine smile tugged at his lips as the adrenaline of being startled died down, his initial indignation at being accosted by unexpected noise and disarray giving way to something immeasurably fond. 

“Well, I see you’ve taken the liberty of assembling every single friend I have,” Jon remarked. 

Naturally, Martin was there, standing at Tim’s side with a sheepish little smile. Stood next to him was Gerry, who waved enthusiastically, and on the other side, nearly hiding behind Sasha was Michael, looking rather like he wanted to die of embarrassment. Elias regarded Michael curiously for a moment, giving him a scrutinizing once-over like he was dissecting the contents of his brain with a glance, and Michael fidgeted uncomfortably. 

Then Elias turned his gaze towards the others and suddenly exclaimed, “my _goodness,_ Tim, what ever happened to your hand?” 

Tim glanced down at the hand that was covered in bandages due to having been attacked by worms and said, “uhhhhhh,” because there was absolutely no way he could explain as much without getting in trouble. 

Sasha, Martin and Jon exchanged nervous glances for a moment, and then Tim said, “a cat scratched it. Like, a lot.” 

“I wasn’t aware your family had a cat,” Elias said lightly, because, of course, he knew that they did not. 

“It was Gerry’s cat,” Tim deflected. 

“Huh?” said Gerry, tuning back into the conversation, “oh, yeah-- Arson? She’s a mean old thing, yeah,” he agreed, going along with it. “Love her to bits, but she’s a little shredder, I tell you.” 

Elias frowned, obviously not believing a word of it. However, not knowing enough about how much Tim and Gerry hung out outside of school to dispute it, he had no choice but to nod and say, “I… I see.” 

“I’ll show you a picture or three of her next time I get myself sent to your office,” Gerry joked, gleefully daring him to call them on the lie. 

“That, er, won’t be necessary,” Elias said, and Tim just grinned. 

“Anyway, come on, you guys,” Sasha said excitedly, gesturing towards the kitchen, “we got you a cake!” 

“And I’ve got something for you as well,” Gerry said brightly. “So does he,” he added, pointing at Michael, whose face turned a shade redder with embarrassment. 

“U- Um, it’s really nothing special--” Michael tried to mumble. 

Gerry cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand and said, “Oh, don’t listen to him, he’s just being modest. Come on, then, Jon.” 

Jon couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. He shifted his grip on the bags he was carrying from the store and said, “uh, just let me go set these down and I’ll be right there.” 

So he did, hurrying to his room and tossing the bags on his bed to be dealt with later before rejoining the others, where they had congregated in the kitchen. Gerry was fussing at Michael, who was murmuring in protest to no avail. 

“So, how long _have_ you all been plotting this?” Jon directed at Tim as he returned. 

“Since the instant he woke up,” Sasha answered for him, and Tim grinned. “He texted me first thing this morning and said, ‘oh my god, we have to throw Jon a surprise party.’”

“Hey, at least he _texted_ you, I didn’t get any warning whatsoever,” Martin said. “He just showed up at my house this morning and said, ‘get in the car, we’re going to the party supplies store.’”

“How very… well-thought-out of you,” Jon said dryly. 

Tim held up his hands in mock defeat and said, “what can I say? When you have a genius idea--” 

“An extremely hasty, spur-of-the-moment idea--” Sasha corrected. 

“--You just gotta roll with it,” Tim concluded cheerfully. “Seize the day or whatever.” 

“I’m sure that’s not what that means.” 

“Ah, but you love us anyway,” Tim said teasingly, and Jon rolled his eyes. 

(He was right, of course. That much was accurate as always.) 

“And those two?” Jon gestured over at Michael and Gerry on the other side of the room, where the two currently had their backs to them. 

In one hand Gerry was holding something slim and rectangular wrapped in an uncharacteristically colorful wrapping paper, and he was using his free hand to repeatedly jab Michael in the shoulder. Michael was trying to bat his hand away, clutching something to his chest. 

“Well,” Sasha said. “After you left yesterday we may have bullied poor Michael into giving us his number, which, as you can see, is a fact we immediately decided to use for evil purposes.” 

_“Birthday_ purposes,” Tim amended, feigning hurt. 

“We dragged him to the store as well,” Sasha continued. “He helped us pick out your cake, it was a lot of fun. Gerry, on the other hand-- we’re… not really sure how he found out, exactly…?” 

“Ah, you think I’d ever want to miss out on an opportunity to annoy Jon?” Gerry called over his shoulder from the other side of the room. 

“--He just sort of invited himself?” Martin said. “Like, he just-- showed up at the store and… started tagging along. We, erm-- I figured it was fine if he came too, s- since I know you’d mentioned him a couple of times before…?” 

“...I see,” Jon said, trying to suppress his amusement and shaking his head at them. He turned his playfully accusatory glare upon his guardian, who was leaning against the counter and pretending to mind his own business. “And what’s this I hear about you condoning this madness?” Jon said. 

“They actually asked my _permission,_ if you can believe it,” Elias said. 

“Ah, so you _are_ an accomplice,” Jon said. 

“Oh, yes,” Elias agreed, amused. “Called me early this morning, wanting to know if I would be alright with it. Rather cute, if you ask me. I said, ‘of course, I think he could certainly use something to cheer him up with the way he’s been lately,’ and then they wanted to know if there was anything I could do to distract you, get you out of the house for a little while. I’m sure you know the rest.” He folded his hands together, clearly pleased with himself, the bastard. 

Before Jon had a chance to formulate a teasing reply to his treachery, he heard Michael saying, “alright, alright, alright,” and looked over to see Gerry cheerfully ushering him in Jon’s direction. 

“Okay-- I’m handing it over, you can stop pushing me,” Michael grumbled. 

“And what exactly are you handing over?” Jon inquired as Michael came to a halt in front of him. 

“Er, i- it’s not really very good…” Michael said, clutching what appeared to be a sheet of sketchbook paper, the thick, sturdy kind. “But… I drew it for you, so… H- Here you go,” he said with a nervous little laugh. Jon accepted it, holding it up to inspect the details. 

Drawn on the paper in colorful swirls of ink was an intricate pattern, circular and arcing out from the center with a vivid complexity. “Wow,” he said, which was all he could really say. It was dizzying to behold, beautiful in a way he had never quite seen before. 

Or, he realized, perhaps he _had_ seen it before. “This is amazing, Michael. Do I recognize this pattern from somewhere? It looks… familiar,” Jon said, feigning casualness. 

“A- Ah, you see, I was rather hoping you _wouldn’t_ say that,” Michael mumbled. “But, yes, I suppose you do. It’s, um…” 

“...You _drew_ this on me once,” Jon said, almost triumphant as realization dawned on him. “On the back of my hand. Back around the time we first met.” 

“A-- Well, er, a simpler version of it, yes,” Michael admitted, looking rather like he wanted to crumble into dust. “Th- That really was an accident, but, um-- I sort of… thought it was… fitting? To-- uh-- draw one of these for you… that is, er…” he fumbled, and Jon smiled. 

“It’s lovely,” Jon said. “I can tell you put a lot of detail into this. Thank you.”

“My turn,” Gerry said, giving Michael a look as if to say _was that really so bad?_ He handed his parcel over to Jon and said, “go on, then, open it up. I can’t wait to see the look on your face.” 

“Well, if you insist,” Jon said as he complied. He carefully tore away the wrapping paper that was covering what turned out to be a rectangular canvas, and then he held it up to get a good look at it. 

“Holy _shit,”_ said Tim, as he and the others crowded around behind Jon to look as well. 

It was a painting of what appeared to be a dark landscape, sinister and apocalyptic in design. 

Looming far in the distance of the painting was the silhouette of a great tower, and-- because it was _Gerry,_ and so of course there was-- behind the tower was the shape of a single massive eye. Great care was taken in the rendering of the unearthly green detail in the iris, flecks of light and dark lending it an astonishing depth. The rest of the painting was dominated by a sky of dark clouds, seemingly lit from behind by an otherworldly light. It was exactly as terrifying as it was beautiful, and Jon marveled at it, speechless. 

“I made this for you,” Gerry said proudly. “Took me ages to get it how I wanted it, but I really wanted it to look right.” 

“Gerry, this is incredible,” Jon said. 

“No kidding,” Martin said, admiring the details. 

Behind them, Elias shifted uncomfortably, regarding the painting as if there were something he found especially disquieting about it. 

“Er, Mr. Keay,” Elias said, “care to… share your inspiration for this piece?” 

Gerry just shrugged. “Man, I dunno, I just thought it would look cool,” he said, and Elias frowned. 

“And you were right,” Jon decided. “Thank you, this is-- this is amazing. I’m… touched, you really didn’t have to-- thank you.” 

He looked between the stark, dramatic darkness of Gerry’s painting and the wild, vivid hues of Michael’s drawing, and then over at Michael, who looked somewhat abashed, as if he’d become uncertain about the quality of his drawing in comparison to Gerry’s gift. 

“You too, Michael,” Jon added lightheartedly, “I’m… amazed to have such talented friends, I really am,” Jon said. Michael brightened up a little bit at that. 

Jon said, “well, I suppose I ought to go see if I can find somewhere to hang these up in my room, then. I’ll be right back.” 

“Ooh, I want to come help,” Sasha said, to which Tim voiced his agreement. Martin opted to tag along as well, and after a moment’s hesitation, Michael sheepishly trailed after them. 

* * *

This left Gerry and Elias behind in the kitchen. 

After a brief moment, Elias said, “about that painting…” 

“Oh,” Gerry made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “It really is nothing, you know. The big eye and the tower and stuff… I just thought it would be cool if I could pull it off-- test my artistic abilities, and all that.” 

“I see,” Elias said neutrally, though there was something odd in his expression. 

“Is there something the matter?” Gerry said with a teasing tone to his voice, and Elias fidgeted. 

“It’s nothing,” Elias said quickly. 

“Why, certainly you’re not afraid of the _eye,_ are you?” Gerry said, a mischievous smile spreading across his face. 

Elias frowned. “That isn’t funny.” 

“No? Well, suit yourself, then” said Gerry, unbothered. 

They were quiet for a moment. 

Gerry tapped his fingers on the counter. “So,” he started. 

“Gerard,” Elias said warningly. 

“About Jon,” Gerry continued anyway. 

“We really don’t have to have this conversation for the dozenth time,” Elias said. 

“He’s _seventeen_ now,” Gerry said exasperatedly, “and yet he still doesn’t, you know… _understand.”_

“I am aware,” Elias said. 

“I _really_ think you need to--” 

“--I am already well aware of your opinions on the subject, Mr. Keay,” Elias said tersely. 

“Oh, come on,” Gerry sighed. “All I’m saying is that it-- it’s just not _normal_ for someone like him not to have it figured out by this age. I’m telling you, you’re going to have to intervene--” 

“I _know,”_ Elias said firmly, “how you, personally, feel about the, how should I say this-- the state of Jon’s… development. And you _know_ that I disagree with the idea that it’s my place, or yours, or _anyone’s_ place, to interfere with it.”

“So you keep saying,” Gerry sighed, annoyed. 

“We can’t very well hold his hand every step of the way,” said Elias crossly. “Surely you know that.” 

“No?” Gerry said, something accusatory beneath the levity in his tone. “Except… isn’t that what you’ve been doing this whole time?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Elias said defensively. 

“Holding his hand, as you put it,” Gerry said, “or rather, holding your hand over his _eyes_ so he doesn’t get scared.” 

“I’m not-- that is _not_ what I’m doing,” Elias bristled. “You misunderstand, I-- I don’t _hide_ things from him. I’ve always answered his questions as best as I can…” 

“Sure, but not the big ones,” Gerry countered. “Never the big ones. Never the ones that you’re afraid might _scare_ him to know the answers to.”

“No,” Elias admitted, gritting his teeth. “Nothing I believe would… endanger him unnecessarily.” 

There was a moment of quiet as Gerry looked at him disapprovingly.

Eventually Elias turned away and grumbled, “I don’t understand why that has to be _such_ a terrible thing.” 

“What do you mean?” Gerry asked. 

“If he weren’t… _scared and in danger_ all the time--” Elias sighed in exasperation. “I really don’t think that would be the end of the world.” 

Gerry considered in silence for a moment, and then laughed, a short, half-derisive exhalation. 

“What an interesting thing to say,” Gerry remarked. “What an interesting thing, indeed, not wanting someone to have to be afraid in a world ruled by unfathomable terrors.” He shook his head, something sympathetic crossing his expression. “You really should know that closing your eyes doesn’t make the danger go away.” 

“Of course I know that,” Elias said reluctantly. “But…” 

“You know it’s not that I _want_ him to be in danger. I don’t.” Gerry looked away, distantly examining the back of his hand, the stylized eyes tattooed over it. “He’s my friend, and I care for him. I don’t want him to be hurt any more than you do.”

“I know,” Elias said, a little guardedly. 

“All I’m saying is that--” 

There was a _thump_ from the direction of Jon’s room, followed by a chorus of giggles. 

“What are they…?” Gerry started. 

“Ah,” Elias said, looking into the distance, “fell off a chair. He’s fine. They should be nearly done in there.”

Gerry hummed noncommittally in reply, and then was quiet for a moment. “Listen, if you would just give him a little shove in the right direction…” he started. 

“For the last time, Gerard, we can _not_ interfere with his development,” Elias said, ignoring the way Gerry rolled his eyes in frustration. “It’s not something to be tampered with. I’m well aware of your… impatience--” 

“That is not--” Gerry started to bristle. 

“--your _concerns,_ shall we say--” Elias amended, “but we really must let him work his way through it at his own pace. Whatever that may be,” he added with a touch of defensiveness. 

“And how long do you suppose _that_ will take?” Gerry said, something petulant slipping into his voice despite his efforts. 

“I really don’t think that’s up to us to decide,” Elias insisted crossly. “That relationship belongs between him and The--” 

At that moment, the door to Jon’s room swung open, and he and his little parade of ‘helpers’ filed out, still ribbing him for his apparent clumsiness whilst attempting to hang the painting. Elias decided to drop it. 

“It’s Gerry, by the way.” 

“What?” Elias said. 

“You don’t have to call me Gerard, you know. Gerry is fine,” he said. “All my friends call me Gerry.” 

Elias frowned and said, “I’m your principal, not your friend, but as you wish.” 

“Whatever,” Gerry said lightheartedly as Jon and the others rejoined them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIRTHDAY SCENE!!! This chapter and the next chapter coming up were originally supposed to be one big chapter, but. it got WAY too big and I had to split it up, soooo look forward to bday scene part two next week I guess! ^^” 
> 
> Also… Gerry and Elias being ominous™ about Jon… that was interesting to write, to say the least. will not elaborate just yet! :)


	21. Chapter 21

“What are you two talking about?” Jon asked as he returned to the kitchen. 

It had actually taken up until seeing Elias and Gerry standing there by themselves for him to realize that perhaps he should have invited Gerry to tag along instead of leaving him behind in the kitchen with his guardian, but, he supposed, on the other hand it meant that Gerry hadn’t been there to witness his… less-than-graceful maneuvers. 

(“Maybe you shouldn’t stand on your desk chair, seems as it has wheels on it and it’s not exactly steady,” Martin had said, ever the voice of reason. 

“It’ll only be for a moment, it’s fine,” Jon had insisted as he tried to hang the painting Gerry had given him above his desk, and immediately proceeded to slip and topple right into poor Michael, like an idiot.) 

“Nothing important,” Elias told him primly. 

“We’re talking about _you,”_ Gerry volunteered immediately in an apparently facetious voice, smiling, and Elias shot him an annoyed look. 

“Y- You were?” said Jon self-consciously. 

“Ooh, tell us an embarrassing Jon fact,” Sasha said jokingly. 

“What? Hey!” Jon protested. 

“Kidding, I’m kidding,” Sasha laughed. Elias just shook his head at them, trying to suppress a smile. “At any rate,” she said, “I think it’s time for cake, yeah?” 

“Hell yeah, it’s not a birthday party without cake!” Tim agreed cheerfully. They crowded around the counter, and Tim fumbled with the plastic cover over it and said, “anybody know where I can find a lighter or a match or something, for the candles?” 

Elias started to say, “yes, I think we have one somewhere around here, it should be…” but was interrupted by Gerry simply whipping a lighter out of his pocket and handing it over. 

“Um,” Martin spoke up, “why, uh, do you have that?” 

“Well, you never know when you’re gonna need to set some shit on fire,” Gerry explained, to which Martin shrugged in agreement. Elias made a face, though whether it was about the bad language or the apparent arson was hard to say. 

So they arranged the candles on the cake. It was, indeed, a rather lovely one, covered in little frosting flowers. Of course, the moment Tim finished lighting the candles, he started loudly singing happy birthday, and all the others followed suit. Jon sputtered futilely in protest as his friend insisted on flustering him with their over the top singing, and then their over the top cheering and applause. (“Happy birthday, dear Jo-onnnnn,” sang everybody except for Elias, who cheerfully insisted upon using his full name, much to his chagrin.) 

“You really didn’t have to do all of this, you know--” Jon began to protest, but Tim just shushed him repeatedly until he gave up. 

“Well? Blow the candles out, birthday boy,” Sasha prompted him. 

“Don’t forget to make a wish!” Tim agreed cheerfully. 

“Alright,” Jon relented. 

_I wish they would at least keep their voices down a bit,_ he thought sarcastically, and extinguished the candles only to be met with a renewed round of cheers, at which he rolled his eyes. He was finding himself half wanting to shut himself up in his room and hide from all the unexpected clamor and business of the whole affair and yet, somehow, enjoying it all immensely despite himself. 

Tim also took the liberty of slicing up the cake and doling out slices, though of course Jon got to have the first pick. “Sooo, what’d you wish for?” Tim asked, grinning. 

“Well, I can’t _tell_ you, that’s not--” Jon started. 

“--He wished for us to keep our voices down a bit,” Elias explained, annoyingly cheerful. 

“Oh, _will_ you cut that out,” Jon said immediately, and his guardian had the audacity to look _confused_ by the accusation in his voice. Jon rolled his eyes. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re--” Elias started, wide-eyed. 

“You’re not allowed to be ominous at my birthday party, or so help me,” Jon declared, crossing his arms. 

“Yeah, no spooky mind readers allowed,” Tim chimed in helpfully. 

“What-- I wasn’t, th- that’s not-- I- I’m not a _mind reader,”_ Elias sputtered. “I just, er--” 

“Oh, sure, you could just see it on my face, or something?” Jon said teasingly. “Exact wording and all? No, I don’t think so.” 

“Th- That’s not, I don’t-- I’m not--” Elias fumbled, looking completely mortified, like he didn’t actually expect Jon to call him on it. Michael looked completely and utterly bewildered by the whole exchange, while Gerry was watching the two of them with immense glee, like he found this to be especially amusing. 

“Get out of here, you spooky man,” Jon said playfully, banishing him with a dramaticized shooing motion. Elias just hurriedly mumbled something about going up to his study and excused himself, snagging a slice of cake on the way out and beating a hasty retreat. 

Jon shook his head, amused. With that taken care of, he turned back to his friends and said, “so… what now?” 

“Well, it’s your birthday party, what do you want to do now?” Sasha said. 

“I don’t _know,”_ Jon grumbled. “You’re the ones who surprised me, so… consider me surprised, yes, but I do believe that makes it your responsibility to _orchestrate_ the party, now.” 

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, let’s just go play some board games or something,” Tim said, amused. 

“That sounds like fun,” Martin agreed, and so it was settled. 

“You know, if I’d _known_ I was going to be having company over, I might have tried to tidy up a little more,” Jon huffed, hurriedly surveying the area as they made their way into the living room, “o- or at least do _something_ more to prepare…” 

“If you’d known we were coming, it would hardly have been a surprise party,” Sasha said lightly. 

“There’s nothing to _tidy,_ you neat freak,” Tim teased. “Relax, Jon, it’s not like we’re here to criticize your home décor. Besides, you’ve _seen_ my room.” 

“I don’t know where the board games are stored, no one’s gotten into them in ages,” Jon protested weakly. “I don’t even know if we still _have…”_

Gerry, who had immediately tuned out and taken to wandering around and inspecting things once Jon started bickering with the others, disappeared briefly into the adjoining hallway. There was the sound of a door opening as he, apparently, opened up the closet, rummaged around a bit and declared, “found ‘em!” 

“Well, there you have it,” Tim concluded, grinning. “See, that wasn’t so hard!” 

Jon shook his head in disbelief. “There’s really no stopping you all, is there?” He said defeatedly. Apparently he was going to have fun at his unforeseen birthday party whether he liked it or not. 

Gerry shoved the closet door closed with his foot and returned from the hallway with a haphazard armload of selections; a deck of cards fell from the pile, and Michael helpfully scooped it up for him. “I can take some of those for you,” Michael offered, and then did not wait for a reply, helping himself to a few of the more precarious things Gerry was trying to hold. 

“By the way,” Jon said, studying Michael and Gerry, “I, uh, didn’t realize you two were friends as well.” He supposed they had to be, what with the decidedly familiar way they were acting earlier in the kitchen. 

But Michael set his things down on the coffee table and said, “we’re not,” at the same time as Gerry cheerfully volunteered, “we are.” 

Jon laughed. “Is that so?” 

“I barely even know you,” Michael protested, and Gerry just made a dismissive hand gesture. 

“Sure you do,” Gerry said. “I bother you in the library all the time.” 

“And you know Ms. Robinson hates that,” Michael grumbled. 

“Oh, Gertrude will get over it eventually,” Gerry said. “Anyway, yeah, we’re definitely friends,” he informed Jon. 

“That’s not-- I mean-- okay,” Michael gave up. Jon tried to hide an amused smile, giving Michael a sympathetic look. 

They ended up assembling around the coffee table, deliberating over their options, joking and bickering amongst themselves. It was, Jon had to admit, rather nice to just get to focus on something as simple and innocuous as what games to play and what weird story was being told about this or that. Little things, unimportant things. 

For now, there was no pressing mystery in need of solving weighing down on his shoulders, no unthinkable monster lurking somewhere waiting for the right time to strike-- nothing grave and ominous demanding his attention and causing anxiety to simmer endlessly in the background of his mind. All that mattered right now was that his friends were having fun, and that he was happy. He was safe, he reminded himself, and he was allowed to relax-- they had all earned that much. 

Martin ended up winning their game in the end, though it was fairly close between him and Tim right up until they finished-- and it actually took until Tim got up to go and take his now-empty plate of cake to the sink for Jon to realize that he had no idea what happened to his own slice. 

“Now, hold on a moment,” Jon said suddenly. “Did anybody, er, happen to see what I did with my cake?” 

“What, you lost an entire piece of cake?” Martin asked, amused. “It’s been almost an hour, and you never thought about it?” 

“I-- got distracted,” Jon defended himself. 

“You probably left it in the kitchen,” Sasha suggested. 

“I’ll bring it to you, then,” Tim said, and collected up the rest of the plates. 

He disappeared into the kitchen, but after a moment he popped his head back out and said, “Jon, yours was the corner piece, right? Big purple frosting flower on it?” 

“Yeah, that was the one.” 

“Well, I don’t see it,” Tim said apologetically. “Do you want me to bring you another piece?” 

Jon frowned. “But then, where did it…” he trailed off as realization dawned on him. 

“Oh, he did _not,”_ Jon suddenly exclaimed, standing up abruptly. 

Right about the same time, Michael stood up as well. “U- Um, I was wondering where the--” he started to say, uselessly, because Jon was already halfway up the stairs. 

Heedless to his friend’s sputtering murmurs as he trailed along behind him, Jon stormed up to Elias’s study, threw the door open and declared, _“you!”_

Sure enough, Elias was sitting at his desk, and on it beside him was the apparently-stolen slice of cake. He gave a start at Jon’s sudden intrusion, blinking. 

“How dare you,” Jon said, pointing at the evidence of his heinous birthday crimes. 

Almost insultingly, it was barely even touched. The split second of complete, bewildered unrecognition from his guardian was, however, enough to convince Jon it had been an accident. That said, as Elias looked where Jon was pointing and at his indignant expression and put two and two together, he apparently decided to take credit for the mistake, because he turned his chair to face him and said flatly, “ah, I see you’ve uncovered my plot to ruin your birthday.” 

“I cannot _believe_ you would betray me like this,” Jon accused. 

“Well, well, I suppose you shouldn’t have banished me from your little party, then,” Elias said, folding his hands in his lap with an insufferable little grin. “Revenge is a dish best stolen from a child’s surprise party, hm?” 

“You _fiend,_ I can’t believe I trusted you,” Jon lamented playfully. 

“Last mistake you’ll ever make,” Elias said cheerfully. 

“You really are the worst, you know that?” Jon said, rolling his eyes. 

“That is rather my job,” Elias agreed. 

“What, to fill me with constant vexation and hinder me at every turn?”

“Oh, yes, and I like to think I’ve become quite good at it.” 

“You _have,_ and you’re horrible and evil and I hate you,” Jon informed him. 

“Is that so?” Elias said, amused. 

“Look at you, sitting there with your stolen cake, not even _eating_ it. You’re just mocking me at this point-- absolutely heinous. You’re a menace and you need to be stopped.” 

“And who’s going to do that, hm?” Elias inclined his head tauntingly. _“You?_ I have to laugh.” 

“You won’t be laughing when I rend you from this wretched existence,” Jon said. 

Elias did raise his eyebrows a bit at that, but he hardly missed a beat before he said, “by all means, I’d love to see you try. If you think you’re even capable.” 

“I’m going to remake the universe without you in it, villain,” Jon stated. 

“You assume I’m not going to destroy you first, foolish child,” Elias replied gleefully. 

Having been standing nervously outside in the hallway thus far, Michael was, to put it mildly, horrified. 

* * *

Fortunately, Sasha arrived promptly to rescue Michael from the absurd situation he’d found himself in. “Don’t worry about it,” she told him firmly, ushering him back downstairs with a look of mortified amusement. 

“But wh- what-- hold on, what are they, um-- what are they _doing,”_ Michael asked, blinking. “Are they-- um, _okay_ in there, or…?” 

“Yep, don’t even worry about it, it’s fine,” Sasha insisted. 

From up in the study, they heard Jon say something that sounded rather like, “I’m going to smite you from reality,” which was followed by Elias saying something like, “not if I unmake reality before you get the chance,” and Michael decided perhaps it was best he just walk away after all. 

“That’s, um, just kind of their weirdo family dynamic or something, it’s fine,” Sasha sighed. 

“Ah… s- so that’s… normal for them?” Michael said uneasily. “Is that how they always are, or… what?” 

“I mean… no?” said Sasha. “Man, I dunno, sometimes they just get in a mood? It’s fine, though, they’re not _really_ arguing if that’s what you’re worried about-- they’re just playing around.” 

“I… see,” Michael said. 

The fact that seemingly threatening to remove each other from existence was, apparently, a regular family occurrence between the principal of his high school and the boy who was probably Michael’s best friend at the moment-- well, he supposed it wasn’t as weird as the fact that these guys apparently hunted evil worms or something in their free time? --but it was definitely up there. 

As far as strange things Sasha had seen from those two, on the other hand-- that probably didn’t even place in the top five, because she’d known Jon since she was twelve and by this point she was immune to him being weird. 

This was something she would have paid absolutely no attention to except for the fact that regular, normal, innocent Michael happened to be standing _right there,_ and that was just embarrassing. 

She had been similarly bewildered by it, once, what felt like forever ago; as far as she could remember the first time she’d really encountered of that specific behavior was when she and Jon were thirteen or so, and she’d come over to hang out-- if memory served they had been intending to go out and ride their bikes, and then the universe decided it had other ideas, because the day went from agreeable and sunny to horrendously rainy in the blink of an eye. 

Thus, they were stuck inside and none too pleased about it, and after becoming bored enough Jon eventually dug out a set of old wooden blocks. Then they’d started building a tower of unnecessarily elaborate detail, because they could and because they had absolutely nothing better to do but to go all out on it. As one does sometimes. 

It was immense and painstakingly crafted, having had to be rebuilt from the ground up more than once as one of them accidentally made a careless motion and disturbed it or when Jon suddenly changed his mind about how he wanted it to look. It was more of a castle than a tower, by the end. (They’d even drawn a little paper flag and carefully placed it at the top, which was ridiculous in retrospect.) 

Just as they had _finally_ stepped back to admire their handiwork, the front door swung open and Elias walked in. 

“Welcome home,” Jon had said, and then, tremendously pleased, “come and see what Sasha and I built.” 

He took _one_ look at that damn thing. 

“Interesting,” Elias had said as he came to inspect it, a smug look playing across his features as he looked it up and down. “Well, I’m sorry to say this, dear Jonathan, but I’ve decided to elect myself the villain of your tragic origin story.” 

“What,” said Jon. 

Then Elias plucked a block from the bottom of the structure and it all immediately went to hell. 

Sasha remembered the immense crash as blocks sprayed every which direction, the wildly comical look of horror and outrage on Jon’s face. 

“You treacherous _demon,”_ he’d said accusingly, wide-eyed with betrayal, and his bastardous guardian had the audacity to _laugh._

(He was not laughing for long, however, because Jon turned around and snagged one of the little cushions off of the couch and hurled it at him, after which Elias realized that perhaps this was not his wisest of plans, and wisely decided to retreat to his study.)

“So--” Michael started awkwardly, a joking little smile on his lips, “I mean this in the nicest way humanly possible, but what on earth is going on with you people?” 

Sasha laughed at that. “God, I wish I knew. You’ll get used to it, though!” She told him cheerfully, because, as far as she was concerned, Michael was stuck with them now whether he liked it or not. “At any rate, uh… what was it you needed from Jon?” She asked. 

“Um, right,” Michael fidgeted a bit timidly. “Just w- wondering where the restroom is…?” 

“Oh,” said Sasha. She pointed. “Down that way, on the right.” 

“Thanks,” he said hastily and quickly turned to leave. 

“Swear to god we’re not all usually like this,” Sasha added suddenly. “Jon is, uhhh-- we’ve sort of been having a hell of a week, but we’re-- m- much more normal than this most of the time, I swear,” she assured him ineffectively. 

“I, uh… I- I believe you?” Michael said, not believing her even a little.

(He also found that he didn’t _mind_ that these were decidedly the weirdest people he’d ever met, because unfortunately, he already liked them way too much.) 

* * *

Up in the office, Elias kept half an eye on the doorway until after the other two were gone. 

“So, Jon, if I may,” Elias started cautiously when he was certain they were out of earshot, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about something.” 

“Sure,” Jon folded his hands behind his back, schooling his expression and posture back into something more composed. “Is something the matter?” 

“Your-- hm.” Elias considered. “About your new little friend, there-- Michael, I believe his name was…?” He trailed off, giving Jon an inquisitive look. 

Jon started to frown, unsure of what he was trying to get at. “What about hi… oh.” 

_Then,_ of course, he realized. 

“Ohhh, it’s-- I know,” Jon said quickly. “I know about him, I’m-- I’m aware.” 

He kept forgetting what Michael really was-- or wasn’t, more precisely. 

He kept forgetting he wasn’t the only one who could _see_ that sort of thing, more importantly. 

“I see,” Elias said slowly. “So… you’re aware.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “When did you first… meet him, if I may ask?” 

_How aware?_ is what Elias was really saying. 

Jon remembered the way that Martin had frowned and shaken his head in confusion back when Michael first turned up and when Jon had tried to call attention to his sudden appearance. _You can’t be serious, Jon, you know Michael,_ Martin had insisted, and then cited an alarmingly specific list of details from a history stretching several years back-- a past that he’d genuinely believed to be the truth, a past that did not exist. 

“Middle of October or so,” Jon said. “Only about a month and a half ago, now.” 

_I see through it,_ is what Jon was really saying. 

Elias regarded him for another moment, like he was weighing his answer in his mind. 

“Michael is-- he’s alright,” Jon told him. “Odd, sometimes, but he’s alright, really.” 

_I know what I’m getting into,_ is what Jon was really saying. They were… fairly good at this by now, talking carefully around matters that neither were quite willing to say out loud, reading between the lines, careful wordings and hidden meanings. 

But this answer seemed to appease Elias, who finally nodded and said, “very well.” He glanced aside for a moment and then added, “then I trust your judgement on the matter.” 

This surprised him somewhat, the directness of the acknowledgement. But Jon smiled nonetheless, if only in attempt to reassure his guardian that he could indeed be trusted to make such a call. 

(At least, he _hoped_ that he could be trusted to listen to his intuition on the subject. Michael had yet to give him any reason to believe he meant ill, and Jon had to hope that he never would.) 

“What are you up to at the moment?” Jon asked. 

Elias blinked, and then looked over at his computer screen, his expression becoming annoyed. “Answering emails, in theory,” he sighed. 

“You look like you’re not having a very good time of it.” 

“Well, you know. Bit of a… staff complication, among other things.” He waved his hand. “It’s nothing I can’t handle, of course.” 

“Still,” Jon said, and then, with a hint of a smile growing on his face he added, “you know, you could probably use a break.”

“Jon…” Elias sighed. 

“You could, oh, I don’t know, come downstairs with us,” Jon said anyway. 

“I _really_ do need to answer these emails,” Elias deflected. 

“Or… you could come and play a game or two with us,” Jon suggested with only a hint of mischief in his voice. 

“I thought you _banished_ me, and yet here you are, bothering me once again,” Elias groused. 

“Well, now I’m un-banishing you,” Jon decided charitably. “Play a card game with us or something. Come on, it won’t be the end of the world.” 

“I have work to do,” Elias insisted flatly. 

“It’s the weekend, and you’re not at work,” Jon pressed stubbornly, crossing his arms. “There’s really no need for you to sit up here by yourself and be… boring.” 

“You’re _seventeen,_ now, Jon, not seven. You hardly need me to entertain you anymore,” Elias admonished him with a sigh. “I do need to get back to this. You run along, now. I’m sure your little friends are waiting for you.” 

“Oh, come _on,_ Elias,” Jon insisted pleadingly, searching for a way to convince him. “You know, I’ve got nearly all of my friends in the same room for once… except for one,” he said and waited for him to fill in the blanks. 

“I am aware you’re not currently on speaking terms with Georgie, yes,” Elias agreed, looking back at his computer screen. 

“That’s… not…” Jon deflated. “Well, first of all, you really don’t need to remind me,” he said, a pang of sadness going through him. “But, second of all, that’s not what I meant.” 

Elias frowned. “Then what do you… oh,” he said as realization dawned on him, and a triumphant grin crept onto Jon’s face as his guardian’s resolve crumbled. 

Elias stood up from his chair with a heavy, put-upon sigh.

 _“One_ game,” he said. 

“Just one,” Jon promised, beaming. 

“And then I really must get back to work,” Elias insisted. 

“Well, since you _really must,_ I suppose I’ll allow it,” Jon said teasingly. 

“Impossible child,” Elias muttered under his breath, and Jon just grinned, knowing he’d won. 

* * *

Naturally, _one game_ immediately became two, which immediately became several. For the full duration of that time, of course, Elias made a complete menace of himself. He won every single game handily, much to Tim and Sasha’s competitive chagrin.

Sasha had made the mistake of suggesting they play BS-- a card game in which you are required to play specific cards whether you actually have them or not. Lying and bluffing (as well as calling out said bluffs) were key components of the strategy; it was a game of competitive deception and calculated guesses. 

As it happened, Michael proved to be rather good at this game. As it happened, Elias proved to be _extremely annoying_ at this game. He predicted the lies of the other players with irritating precision, and the whole time Gerry kept shooting him this weirdly knowing look of complete annoyance and exasperation, which Elias ignored with glee as he won his fourth game in a row. 

Jon, however, had kept surveying the room like he was taking roll and looking so very pleased with himself, clearly enjoying the whole affair, and so one had any complaints. Inevitably, of course, Elias excused himself back to his study to go do boring adult things, leaving the rest to their own devices. 

The sun had started to go down by the time they started cleaning up and putting the games away, and Jon reluctantly asked, “are any of you all, uh… going to need a ride home, or anything?” 

“Oh, no, we’re staying the night,” Sasha said with a dismissive hand gesture. “‘Least-- me, Tim and Martin are.” 

“Ah, and I see you decided not to inform me of that part,” Jon remarked. 

“We’re telling you now, aren’t we?” Tim said playfully. 

“Besides,” Martin added, “it’s… been a while since we’ve all gotten together and had a proper sleepover, the way we used to, y’know? We thought it would be fun.” He paused and added, “if that’s alright with you,” ever the one most solicitous to Jon’s particular brand of grumpy introversion. 

It _had_ been a while, Jon realized. Certainly the four of them hadn’t had much time to _really_ spend together as of late, unless their trips down to the tunnels counted, but that was… different. 

And… today was-- it was nice, and if he was being honest with himself, the thought of it coming to an end, having to say goodbye to any of them… 

“That’s alright,” Jon responded, a little smile playing on his lips. “It does sound like fun.” 

“Oh hell yeah, it’s a sleepover?” Gerry suddenly chimed in. “Mind if I stay as well?” He asked, looking rather as if he found the concept of a sleepover to be inherently amusing. “If that’s alright with you?” 

“I certainly have no issue with that,” Jon said, his smile widening a little despite himself. 

“Dope,” said Gerry. 

“However,” Jon added, “unlike _these_ three and their… premeditated acts of treachery, I don’t believe you’re particularly prepared. Surely you’re not going to want to go to sleep in your jeans, for one.” 

“I’ll just steal some of your pajamas, then, it’s fine,” Gerry said. 

Jon tried not to laugh in response to that, he really did. “And won’t you need to get permission to stay first?” 

“Oh, no,” Gerry said dismissively, and then, with a bit of a cryptic smile he added, “she’ll know.” He volunteered no explanation as to whatever the hell _that_ meant, but Jon decided to believe him. 

“Well, if you say so,” he said. He turned his attention Michael, who had been quiet thus far, and added, “you’re welcome to stay too, you know, if you’d like.” 

“Oh, a- are you sure?” Michael said hesitantly. “I wouldn’t want to, you know, be a bother or anything--”

“No, by all means,” Jon said. “If you’d rather head home, though, I understand. You look rather like you’ve had an… interesting day, so far.” 

Michael smiled bashfully at him and said, “Alright, I… yeah, I’d, um-- I’d like that. Thank you.” Unlike Gerry, he also added, “let me just, uh… give someone a call, let them know… and I’ll have to ask someone to bring me a few things, m- meds and stuff…” 

“Of course,” Jon said, and he turned back to the group as they started discussing what they wanted to do next, which, at the moment, was start thinking about what they were going to have for dinner. 

Michael moved a little ways over into the entrance of the hallway and held his phone up to his ear, and Jon _tried_ not to eavesdrop, but what Michael said as the call went through was “...Hello? Yeah, hey, Agnes! So--” and Jon did a double take. 

“Agnes Montague??” Jon blurted out unthinkingly. 

Michael frowned over at him, leaning away from the phone a moment and explaining, “one of my foster siblings,” which was, if anything, even more bewildering a detail to suddenly know. 

“I’m good, yeah!” Michael was saying into the phone. “So, um, actually, I was wondering if you might do me a favor?... Could you let Mr. Fielding know I’m going to be staying over at a friend’s house? And, er, w- would you be willing to bring me…” He trailed off, listening. “Huh? Oh, yeah. I’m at Jon’s house, it’s-- they’re having a sleepover, for his birthday. You know him, don’t you?” he said. Then after a moment he turned away from the phone and said, “Agnes says hi.” 

“Er, tell her I say hi as well?” Jon said. Sasha gave Jon an inquisitive look, so he told her, “he’s on the phone with a girl I used to take chemistry class with.” 

Agnes had been his lab partner once, and she’d sat next to him for the duration of the class. Much like his first meeting with Michael, Jon had simply walked into the classroom on the first day of school that year, his eyes fell upon his partner-to-be, and his mind had whispered _not human_ in that quiet little voice it used. 

She had certainly _appeared_ normal, and not unlike how Jon had first reacted to Michael, his suspicion towards Agnes had died down over the course of time. She was just… nice, perfectly pleasant to work with, and she never gave Jon any reason to think she was up to anything sinister. She had, however, caused two small fires in the lab and one very minor explosion, all of which she was extremely apologetic about. It was fine. 

“What’s your address again?” Michael asked eventually, jarring Jon from his thoughts. He told him, and Michael relayed the information over the phone and then said, “great, thanks a bunch, I’ll see you in a bit!” With that, he hung up. 

“I didn’t know you lived with Agnes,” Jon mentioned. 

“Sure,” Michael said. “So, you know that house at Hilltop that everyone says is cursed or haunted or what have you?” 

“I’ve… heard the rumors, yes,” Jon agreed hesitantly. 

“Well, I live there,” Michael explained. 

“So…” Tim spoke up. “Just wondering, since I guess you would probably know-- _is_ it cursed?”

“Tim, you can’t just ask someone if their house is cursed,” Martin protested. 

“It is actually cursed, yeah,” Michael agreed simply. 

“Oh, lovely,” remarked Sasha. 

“It’s not haunted, though,” Michael continued. 

“W- Well, at least it’s not haunted, then?” Martin ventured tentatively. 

“Yet,” Michael added. 

He then did not elaborate. 

* * *

The remainder of the evening passed in a rather agreeable manner. Eventually a car pulled into Jon’s driveway and Michael went out to meet it. When Jon looked out the window, he saw a boy who was probably about their age sitting in the driver’s seat of the car, and sure enough, Agnes leapt out of the passenger’s side with a duffel bag in one hand and what appeared at first glance to be a coffee in the other, her auburn hair swishing as she half-jogged up to Michael. He accepted both items from her and chatted with her for a minute or two before returning inside, tossing his duffel bag on the couch and handing the cup to Jon. “For you,” Michael had informed him. “Chai latte, she said.” 

“Huh?” 

“Her boyfriend Jack works at Starbucks,” Michael explained. 

“O- Oh,” Jon had replied intelligently, surprised by the unexpected item. That was probably who the boy driving the car had been, then. Perhaps he’d just gotten off work and they’d come from there, Jon supposed. 

He inspected the cup and noticed that there was a little sticky note affixed haphazardly to the lid which read, _Happy b-day Jon! xoxo -Agnes :)_

He couldn’t help but smile as he read it. “That was rather nice of her,” he said. “Please tell her I said thank you, when you get the chance,” he’d said, and Michael had agreed with a grin. 

Shortly thereafter the group of them decided that they wanted to order pizza, because the idea of trying to cook for seven people out of the blue seemed a bit much, so Jon tromped on up to Elias’s office once again to pester him. “Yes, yes, yes, that’s fine,” his guardian had said, immediately shooing him away before Jon could even finish getting the words out of his mouth. 

Presently he was heading back downstairs again after having brought a slice up to his study for him. His friends were assembled in the living room, idly watching a movie as they ate, and, as Jon discovered, Gerry and Michael were apparently having a heated discussion about optical illusions or something of the like. 

“I just think it’s weird,” Michael was saying, “you know, like how human eyes are constantly tricking themselves, just by design.”

“Maybe _yours_ are,” Gerry said lightly. 

“What? No, it’s-- that’s just how it works,” Michael insisted. “That’s just how brains work. Everyone’s eyes are basically lying to them all the time, it’s science.” 

“Well, that really is too bad about your eyes, get well soon,” Gerry said flippantly, obviously enjoying the way Michael sputtered indignantly at his obstinance. _“Ours_ never lie to us, right, Jon?” Gerry added, glancing at him with a look of conspiratorial mischief before turning back to Michael. “He knows what I mean.” 

“Oh, yes, absolutely,” Jon agreed solemnly, not knowing what he meant. 

Michael wisely decided to just drop it, much to Gerry’s delight. 

So they finished their dinner and their movie, and then inevitably they had to start getting ready for bed. Everyone more-or-less took turns changing into their pajamas, and then Jon had to worry about how to get everyone situated for sleep. Since his room was certainly not large enough to accommodate all six of them, the living room seemed like the best choice. 

He dragged some extra pillows and blankets out of the closet for them, and there had to be a little bit of furniture rearrangement, but soon enough they all got their sleeping bags arranged. Minus Gerry, that is, who would be sleeping on the couch due to not having brought one, and Jon, who was theoretically going to be going back to his own room-- which, unsurprisingly, he was soon to discover would not actually be the case. 

They stayed up a while longer, talking and trading stories about this and that, and Jon ended up sitting cross-legged on Martin’s sleeping bag next to him, though he found that he wasn’t especially sure when that had happened. 

The conversation eventually began to grow quiet with drowsiness, until only Tim, Sasha and Martin were still in varying degrees of _awake,_ and as Jon looked around the room at the tired faces of his friends, he felt something soft and fond begin to unfurl in his chest. It was a quiet thing that ached in the base of his throat the more he thought of it, and think of it he did until he couldn’t hold it in any longer. 

“Thanks,” is what he said eventually, something raw and unguarded in his voice, quiet as it was. 

It was Sasha who answered him, after a beat. “What for?” She mumbled. 

“I don’t know. For… for being here, I suppose,” Jon said. “You… really didn’t have to go through all of this trouble just for me. You really didn’t have to do all of this.” 

“We know,” Tim said with a little smile. “But we did it anyway, ‘cause we wanted to.” 

“We’re always gonna be here for you,” Martin said gently. “You know that.” 

“I do,” Jon breathed. “It’s been… nice. I’m glad you all are here. I suppose it’s just that I… want you all to know that. I really appreciate-- well. Everything.” 

Because… he knew that the real reason they had done all of this, more likely than not, was to cheer him up after what happened with Jane and everything that entailed. 

He knew that this was because they’d watched him struggle and suffer and wear himself down to the bone-- and they had been there beside him every step of the way, unwavering and solid, reliable even when the odds towered against them. He knew that this was because his actual birthday had been downright miserable, because they had decided that he didn’t deserve to _be_ miserable, because they had decided that they all deserved better than that. He was so, so lucky to have them. He knew that, and he _ached_ with the knowing of it. 

“It’s almost like we love you or something,” Sasha teased him gently. 

“Funny thing, that,” Jon replied with a soft smile. “I really wouldn’t advise it.” 

“Well, sorry to say, but it’s a little too late for that, don’t you think,” said Tim jokingly. 

“You’re really stuck with us now,” Martin agreed, tentatively wrapping an arm around Jon. 

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Jon murmured quietly, allowing himself to lean into him, a soft exhalation of contentment escaping him. “Thank you for everything. I mean it.” 

_I love you guys,_ he wanted to say, _I love you all so much it hurts._ He couldn’t quite seem to make his lips form the words, but whether that was out of hesitation or sleepiness, he couldn’t tell anymore.

It was the last thought on his mind as he eventually drifted off. 

* * *

“I love him,” Martin confessed with no preamble, his voice quiet and his eyes not meeting Tim’s. 

Tim and Martin were the last ones awake. Martin was half-reclined on his sleeping bag, Jon’s sleeping form sprawled over him and a blanket draped over the two of them. 

“Oh,” Tim said intelligently, just sort of nodding before reaching up to rub his eyes. 

Then it sunk in, and Tim said, “wait. I… wait, do you mean, like… wait. You _love him,_ love him?” 

Martin just nodded, his gaze fixed on Jon, his expression all soft and vulnerable. 

“Oh, shit,” Tim said, and the corners of Martin’s mouth quirked up in a smile at that. 

“Shit, okay, yeah,” Tim said, processing. “Wow, that’s… No, that actually makes a lot sense.”

“How do you mean?” Martin asked quietly. 

“Like, just…” Tim fumbled, “the way you guys act, it-- I dunno. Kinda puts everything into perspective, if that makes any sense. You know, like it feels… right.” 

Martin just hummed in response, absentmindedly running his fingers through Jon’s hair. 

“Does Sasha know, too, or…?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Martin said. “I haven’t _told_ her as much, if that’s what you’re asking. Whether or not she suspects it, though, your guess is as good as mine.” 

Tim nodded. “I won’t say anything to her, then,” he promised. “O- Or to him.” 

“Thanks,” Martin said quietly. 

“So, uh…” Tim started, “if you don’t mind my asking, how long have you…” he made a vague gesture towards Jon. “You know, had feelings for him?” 

Martin was quiet for a moment at that. “Forever, I guess?” 

Tim laughed quietly. “Well, w- we haven’t exactly known him forever, but yeah, I think I know what you mean.” 

“Haven’t I?” Martin said distantly. 

Tim frowned a little at that, but then he said, “what made you decide to bring it up?” 

“I don’t know,” Martin said quietly. “Remember back when we were younger, around when we all first became friends? And… then that day Sasha told us to meet her at the library all of the sudden… and we went off and fought that-- that vampire thing, and saved Georgie?”

“‘Course I do,” Tim said. 

“About a week or two after that, we had a sleepover,” Martin said. “That one was at your house. Remember that?” 

“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “We stayed up ‘til, like, four in the morning.” 

“Mhm,” Martin murmured in agreement, looking down. “He fell asleep on me then, too.” 

Tim slowly nodded. “I remember that,” he said. “We teased you both about it when we all woke up.” 

“Yeah,” Martin agreed, a sort of nostalgic amusement in his expression. “Relentlessly, I might add? You kept going, ‘Jon and Martin, sitting in a tree…’ and Jon kept getting all grumpy because he thought it was ‘childish and ridiculous’.” 

Tim started to smile as he recalled it. “So you’re telling me this whole time I was right all along?” 

“I suppose I am,” Martin said, a soft smile playing on his lips, sentimental and fond. “I dunno. I just… I was thinking a lot about things like that. Just little things.” 

“Important things, though,” Tim ventured. 

“Yes,” Martin agreed faintly, nodding. “I think I like that. I guess it’s not like it matters so much in the grand scheme of things, maybe, but… I dunno. It matters to me.” 

Then he yawned, and Tim smiled a little. 

“Go to sleep,” he chided Martin gently. “Your secret’s safe with me.” 

“Alright,” Martin relented quietly. “Well… goodnight, Tim. Thanks for… I dunno. Listening to me, I guess.” 

At that moment Jon shifted a little bit in his sleep, murmuring indistinctly and clutching Martin a little tighter. Martin’s heart visibly melted. 

“Anytime,” Tim told him warmly. “‘Night, Martin,” he said before turning over. 

Martin leaned back, drawing the blanket up around Jon’s shoulders a little more and watching the steady rise and fall of his chest for another moment. 

He let his eyes fall closed, soft with affection, and murmured, “happy birthday, Jon. Goodnight.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Slaps roof of this chapter* this baby can fit so much Fluff And Shenanigans in it. 
> 
> For real though I had SUCH a blast writing all the wacky interactions in this!! I’ve been looking forward to this chapter for a while now, although consequently I ended up obsessing over it a little and I spent eons tweaking everything to get it Exactly Right. (the scene where Sasha has the memory of Elias destroying her and Jon’s block tower, that part alone somehow went through THREE whole rewrites??) I loved every bit of craziness in this chapter though, because everyone is just vibing and being weird and having fun and that’s what they deserve!!!


	22. Chapter 22

He was not aware, when he woke up that morning, that everything was about to change. 

Come Monday, Michael was gradually pestered awake by the sounds of other people clanging about inconsiderately, as per usual. He dragged himself out of bed, bickered with the other kids about petty trivialities such as who kept leaving their cereal boxes out on the counter instead of putting them away, and as to who in the hell had gotten into _his_ drawer for the second time in a week and rearranged all his things; Michael eventually tracked down his errant hairbrush, dragged it through his tangled mess of curls, and spaced out until Agnes came and led him away. 

The two of them headed out the door barely a moment after Mr. Fielding stepped out into the living room, and Michael only heard about half a syllable of what he presumed to be a morning address of some variety before the rest of it was cut off by the front door swinging shut. Nothing important, Agnes had always assured him. 

Or rather, _nothing you’ll want to hear_ is what she always told him, to be precise. Which was alright by Michael. 

They walked down to the bus stop in the darkness and chill of the morning, and Michael drew his jacket closer around him as they did so, fumbling ineffectively with the half-broken zipper. There they would wait for easily another half an hour or more before anyone else came or the bus arrived, just himself and Agnes, same as always. Generally they would chat about this or that, or one of them would pull out a book or earbuds or something else to pass the time. Better to be out of the house, or so Agnes always told him-- and that was no big deal, and he trusted her, of course he did. Beat for beat, it was a morning that was functionally no different from any other, every single step in an unchanging routine already long mapped out. 

Today, they ended up talking a bit before the bus came. Agnes reached over, casually readjusting the collar of his jacket as she said, “so, how was your party?” 

“It was good!” Michael said brightly. “Thanks again for bringing me my stuff, I really appreciate it. Don’t know what I’d do without you guys,” he said with a sheepish little smile. 

“Anytime,” Agnes said warmly. “Well, I’m glad you had a good time. I’ve certainly never been to a sleepover before,” she said off-handedly, and then a strange expression crossed her face, something distant and hard to place. 

“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” Agnes decided after a moment. 

“Oh-- well,” Michael said, “we played a lot of games, like-- board games and card games and such? And we got pizza and watched a movie and talked, it was nice,” he told her. 

Agnes nodded slowly. “That does sound nice,” she said, her voice quiet. 

“Also the principal was there,” Michael added. 

“Oh,” Agnes said. And then, “wait-- _what?”_

“Yeah he was just there, and everyone else was totally unphased, and I was like, ‘what do you _mean_ this guy exists outside of school?’ It was weird.” 

“Now, hang on a minute,” Agnes said, “so he was just, like, _at_ the party?” 

“I mean he lives there,” Michael said. 

“He does??” 

“Yeah I guess he’s Jon’s dad or something? So I dunno what I expected.” 

“Well I’ll be,” said Agnes, blinking. “How strange.” 

“He kicked my ass at card games, yeah,” Michael said. 

“Fantastic,” said Agnes. 

“Also I’m pretty sure he’s evil,” Michael added casually. 

Agnes made a bewildered expression for a moment, but then she dramatically declared, “oh my god, I knew it.”

“You would be _shocked_ how unconcerned everyone was about that,” Michael added. “Jon was all like, ‘stop being evil at my birthday party!’ and everyone was just like, ‘yeah Jon you tell him!’ --I’m sorry, what are you people talking about??” 

“Oh my goodness,” Agnes said, eyes wide with amusement. 

“Literally, Sasha was all, ‘we don’t talk about the fact that Mr. Bouchard is evil. Don’t worry about it.’ Excuse me?? Like, you guys are freaking me out, but whatever you say,” Michael continued. “And then she was like, ‘by the way, we’re normal as hell, I’ll have you know.’ ...Thanks, Sasha, I believe you.”

“Oh yes, that’s definitely what normal people say, I can vouch,” Agnes agreed jokingly. Then she said, “so… the principal is evil.” 

“Apparently,” Michael said. 

“And you went to the party and he was there, being evil,” she continued. “At the… evil slumber party.” 

“Correct.” 

“So now you’re evil,” Agnes concluded flatly. 

“...Yes. That’s exactly how that works,” Michael agreed, equally solemn. 

“I _knew_ it,” Agnes said, mock-accusatory. 

“You got me. Turns out being evil is contagious. Whoops! Sorry, if you’ll excuse me I have to go unravel the universe now or whatever,” Michael said. “And now you’re talking to me, so you’re evil too. My bad.” 

“Joke’s on you, I’m already evil,” Agnes said. 

“No you’re not,” Michael said, pushing her shoulder jokingly. “As if.” 

She laughed a little, and then broke off suddenly, an odd expression on her face. 

“Well, I’m glad you think that, at least,” she said, offering him a small but genuine smile. 

“Really, though, it was nice,” Michael told her, smiling back. “Like I said, we mostly just hung out and played games and talked a lot. I was, um… Pretty nervous to be there, at first, but Jon’s friends are actually really nice, and they seemed to actually… want me to be there… which was, well, different,” he remarked, glancing away. 

“Aw, that’s good,” Agnes told him. She considered for a moment. “Well… I’m glad to see you in better spirits, at least.” 

“What do you mean?” Michael asked. 

“You seemed… a bit off, when you came home on Friday,” Agnes remarked carefully. 

“Oh, er… R- Right,” Michael mumbled. Friday. He’d almost forgotten about much of that by now. 

It was easy to lose track of that when he’d had the sleepover that weekend to distract him. He certainly wasn’t keen to dwell on the turmoil that’d taken place, the discovery of the monsters his friends fought and the hidden passageways that spoke to him and pulled at the strings of memories he wasn’t sure he truly had. 

“You were out really late, for one,” Agnes said. “And by the time you got back you seemed rather stressed, and a little bit out of it. Like you weren’t quite yourself,” she said, a hint of something strange in her voice; worry and something else, a question unasked. 

He couldn’t quite tell what that question was. If it was as to what he’d been up to, that was something he’d promised Jon and the others to keep to himself. Whatever the real reason was that they wanted to keep the tunnels underneath the school a secret, Michael trusted that they had a good one. As much as he trusted Agnes, that wasn’t something he could tell her about right now. 

If it was as to why Michael had been out of sorts, well… He wasn’t entirely sure he had the answer to that yet himself. 

“Just seemed like you’d had a bit of a difficult day, that’s all,” Agnes added when Michael hesitated a moment too long, a deceptive air of casualness about her. 

“I suppose so,” Michael murmured nervously. 

Agnes contemplated for a moment, choosing her words carefully. 

“Michael, be honest,” she said seriously. “Are you… doing alright?” 

“What do you…” Michael started to say, slightly alarmed and a little defensive. Then he considered, frowning, and sighed. “I don’t… I don’t know,” he admitted finally. 

Agnes nodded slowly. “That’s completely understandable,” she said, though there was still something strange and almost guarded in her tone. “You know, come to mention it… Would it be fair to say you’ve, how shall I say this… been having a bit of a strange month?” She said, watching his reaction carefully. “Since, oh, I don’t know… mid-October or so?” 

“That’s… a little specific, isn’t it?” Michael responded, but she was right on the mark, almost uncomfortably so. It was an odd thing to say-- she had to mean _something_ by it, but Michael had no idea what that could be. 

Agnes kept looking at him with that same scrutiny, waiting for his reply, so Michael admitted, “yes, I suppose you could say that.” 

She hummed uncertainly, like she was processing his answer, which made Michael a little bit nervous. 

“Well,” she told him, “I’ll always look out for you, you know. And you can come to me anytime, okay?” 

“Thank you,” Michael said, fidgeting a little. “I know. And I appreciate that. B- But you don’t need to worry about me.” 

“You sure?” Agnes said, looking strangely unconvinced, like she knew something he didn’t. “Are you going to be alright today?” 

“Agnes, I’m fine,” Michael said placatingly, staring down at his feet. “I promise I’m fine.” 

“...If you say so,” she said solemnly. At that moment the bus finally arrived, and if Michael got up a little too quickly as it approached, Agnes didn’t say anything about it. 

* * *

There was nothing inherently special about this morning that spoke of anything any more important or momentous than any other day. Not by itself, that is. 

If he was looking very closely, however, he could almost start to see it now, something ever so slightly _different_ about the shape of this day. Like it was just half a step out of alignment from the way it had been before. 

It was true, however, that Michael excelled at overthinking things, and it was also true that he excelled at second-guessing himself. 

On the bus he stared out the window and turned over the contents of the last few days in his head, considering the implications of the morning’s conversation. Maybe it was just that Agnes’s line of questioning had made him a little uneasy-- that was probably it, and he was probably just getting himself worked up over nothing. It was just a normal conversation that he was reading too much into. Aside from right up at the end, all she’d wanted to know about was how the surprise party had gone-- nothing unusual about that, he told himself. 

_Surprising_ was certainly one way to put it, though, he thought to himself. He hadn’t expected to be invited to such a thing at all, especially not with such short notice and, well, odd circumstances, but… he had enjoyed it all the same. It’d been different, sure, but he found that he’d rather liked feeling like he was-- a part of something, as it were. Welcome. Indeed, he’d never even _been_ to a sleepover before. 

That he knew of, that is. 

_That_ was the thing that bothered him, now that Michael realized that he ought to be bothered by it at all. His recollection of things, or-- what he _believed_ to be his recollection of things… There was something not right about it, and he’d only just begun to see the inconsistencies and the holes in it all. 

His perceptions of, well, _everything--_ the more closely he looked at them, the more shaky and unsteady they felt, until he feared they would come entirely undone. This was a thought that, predictably, brought with it a certain level of anxiety, such that he chased it from his mind before it had a chance to really take root. 

He did not have time to worry himself over that right now. He had classes. He had other things to spend his energy on, and besides, it was fine-- he was forgetful, he was tired, he didn’t have a lot of memories worth looking back fondly upon to begin with-- making up plausible excuses for the errors of his mind was easy, so easy. It was fine, or so he told himself. 

He was wrong, of course, which he was about to discover. 

* * *

The moment arrived at lunchtime. 

Usually, Michael could not find it within himself to contend with the crowds and the clamor. If he had lunch at all, it was usually something snagged from the Fielding house right before hurrying out the door for the morning-- a granola bar crammed into his backpack or a slightly battered piece of fruit or some other blandly acceptable thing. 

More often than not, though, he would just head straight to the library for the duration. It was easier that way, he told himself, being that his next period was there anyway, and Ms. Robinson did so frown upon him being late for any reason. As long as it kept him from upsetting anyone… well. That didn’t bother him at all. Certainly he had no good _reason_ to be bothered by that. It was fine. 

Today was different, though. Specifically, it was that he’d bumped into Jon and Martin on his way to the library. 

_Where are you going?_ Jon had asked, innocently enough. Then Michael had no choice but to explain that he was skipping lunch, and then Martin had frowned and insisted that it wasn’t good for him, and, well, somehow he ended up getting dragged along with them. 

_Come sit with us,_ they’d insisted. Which, Michael supposed, couldn’t hurt. 

_If you’re sure,_ he had agreed, trying to hide a nervous little smile, inordinately pleased by the fact that they would invite him to do so at all. 

So there they stood, chatting in the cafeteria as students milled about, and that was the way she finally found him. 

See, there’s something to be said about how easy it is to simply pass by people-- waiting in lines, sitting on the bus, weaving through crowds-- how easy it is for lives to intersect without touching, that was something poets and the like were far better at putting into words than Michael would ever be. There is also something to be said about the momentous weight of seemingly small moments, the coincidental alignment of being in the right place at the right time. 

From his perspective, it was just luck that he’d ever gotten to know Jon and the others at all, for one. It was just luck that he’d ended up being placed in the same class at the same period. It was just luck that he’d forgotten his favorite pen in class and had to go back for it on Friday, just luck that he so happened to glance down the other end of the hall. It was just luck that he happened to catch sight of Sasha, disappearing into a door she should not have been opening. 

The fact that Michael had _known_ where they went at all, that he’d been there to catch even the smallest glimpse of a puzzle he hadn’t yet realized he was part of-- it was all just a matter of coincidence, or so it seemed. He hadn’t known what had made him turn his head in the right direction at the right time. He didn’t know what made him decide today of all days to deviate from his routine. But he did, and so here he was. 

It so happened that this was the coincidence that he’d avoided thus far simply by never quite being in the right place and the right time. 

She stood on the far side of the cafeteria, chatting with a pair of girls he did not yet have reason to recognize. She did not know what made her turn her head in the right direction, and it was just luck that he happened to be looking that way when she did. 

But-- she recognized his eyes. She’d never forgotten his eyes. 

He watched as recognition began to materialize in the sharp intensity of the girl’s focus. _“You!”_ She exclaimed from the other side of the room, and with that she broke into a run. Michael just stood there like a deer in headlights, stupefied. 

For a moment as she strode towards him, he had the strangest thought that this unknown girl was about to just-- up and start a fight with him right in the middle of the cafeteria. 

That would be rather inconvenient for him, because if there was such a thing as a _right mood_ to be suddenly assaulted in, he was decidedly not in it. Which was a bizarre and slightly alarming thing to be thinking whilst students hurriedly stepped out of the way as this girl he didn’t know he recognized bore down on him. 

Then she collided with him, and… She threw her arms around him, all but collapsing into him in a hug, shoulders shaking slightly. 

If at all possible, Michael was even more bewildered. 

For another moment he stood frozen with shock and confusion before the pieces began to click together. The familiar-unfamiliar curls of her brown hair. The faded color of the girl’s scarf. He should know them, he realized with a start. He should recognize them. He needed to recognize them. 

Understanding danced within his grasp-- his head throbbed as he fought to grab ahold of it. And that, too: why was that feeling _familiar_ to him? 

That sensation, that terrifying realization of _absence_ within his mind where recognition ought to have been, he-- he’d felt this before, he was sure of it. The lower level halls. The dark storeroom. The trapdoor. He’d _felt_ this before. The… the door. 

Oh god. 

The door. That was it. 

The house, the door, the hallways-- at last recognition slotted into place, dizzying and blindingly intense. 

“Oh,” Michael gasped, his eyes wide with shock as he finally unfroze, numbly hugging her back as he stammered, “oh my god, I- I’m so sorry. I didn’t know-- I would have come looking for you, I-- I didn’t remember anything, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know…” 

Michael’s friends were, however, watching this exchange with a very understandable level of complete and total bewilderment. After a moment Martin cleared his throat and said, “excuse me, but, um. What on earth is going on here?” 

“And who, exactly, might you be?” Jon directed at the girl with a sort of defensive quality to his voice, crossing his arms. 

She straightened up and stepped away from Michael at that, sizing Jon up warily before replying, “who are _you?”_ As if Jon were the intruder unto this exchange. This all would’ve perhaps been slightly mortifying for Michael if he were not already busy reeling with the sudden onslaught of realizations. 

God, he’d had no idea. His mind had hidden it from him so well, and that terrified him. Here it was, the realization he hadn’t even known he’d been fighting for. 

“We, uh… We probably all need to talk,” Michael said with an awkward little laugh, holding his hands up to his temples like he was trying to stop his skull from being torn in two. 

“It certainly seems so,” Jon said warily. 

“Right, so, I think some introductions are probably in order…?” Michael mumbled. “These are my friends, Jon and Martin,” he said, indicating the two of them. Martin offered a smile in return, though Jon continued to look stiff and skeptical. “And, um, this is…” he paused apprehensively. 

“Helen,” she volunteered. “My name is Helen Richardson.” 

Jon and Martin exchanged a look, but Helen paid them no heed as she turned back to him. 

“Michael, what _happened?_ Where have you-- why did you… You were _gone,”_ she fumbled tensely. “I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to have finally found you, but you-- I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, a- after a while I’d stopped hoping, well… Hell, I thought you’d been _erased from reality.”_

“I was,” Michael agreed dizzily, and at that Jon turned to face him with a sharp, knowing intensity in his gaze. “I remember now. I was. I should not be alive.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Time.


	23. Chapter 23

She was nine years old when they discovered the door. 

At the time, her family had recently moved into a new house. It was a fine house. It was a big house. It was also a house that was just a little too big for a nine-year-old girl to spend so much time alone in. 

It was a lonely house, she decided. 

Helen knew, logically, that her parents loved her. They took care of her and they fussed over her, overprotective at times, even; she knew she mattered to them, and she loved her mother and her step-father both very much. But she was an only child, or so she had believed, and her parents were _busy,_ and she didn’t have any friends here, and-- it was just… lonely. 

The house felt so _empty_ at times when no one else was home, during the gap between her getting home from school and her parents getting home from work, especially when they had to stay late. If she had a problem, she was instructed to go to the next door neighbor for help, a friend of her parents, of course. And naturally, her parents would always call her to check on her, yes-- the high-pitched ring of the telephone sounded out loud and clear in the empty halls of that home, a jarring, dissonant thing that still inspired a nameless sense of quiet in her even to this day. 

She always listened for the telephone. It was an instinctual thing, an impulse she obeyed automatically even when it wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary. 

And, yes, she knew that she was not supposed to eavesdrop when the grown-ups were talking on the phone. But on an otherwise unimportant day it just so happened that the phone rang in the evening, and without thinking-- even though her parents were home, and it wasn’t necessary-- Helen’s steps automatically led her towards it out of simple unthinking routine. Her mother reached it before she did, however, and, well, Helen wasn’t quite sure at the time what made her linger outside the threshold of the room as her mother answered the phone. 

Most of the meandering conversation that ensued between her mother’s friend and herself was of little importance to Helen, but she certainly paid attention when she caught the words _Helen’s father,_ out of simple curiosity if nothing else. 

“Oh, yes, can you believe it?” Her mother was saying conversationally to her friend. “Barely even a year into our marriage, my first husband was cheating on me. I was outraged! I left him when I learned that he’d had a son with another woman,” she said, which Helen had absolutely _no_ idea about, because no one ever talked about her birth father for obvious reasons. “One of our mutual friends at the time, she was. Well, I cut ties with both of them in a right hurry!” 

Helen wisely decided to take that piece of scandalous information and leave, hurrying back to her room so quick she nearly tripped over her own feet. 

(Then a few days later it set in that she apparently had a secret brother that no one had ever told her about, and this immediately became the only thing she could think about.) 

* * *

“You never told me I had a brother,” she blurted out at the dinner table one evening, unprompted. 

There was a moment of stunned silence. 

“You don’t,” her mother had said, her face going white. “I have no idea what made you think that.” 

“Yes, I do. I heard you say it. On the phone.” 

“Helen,” her mother started admonishingly, gearing up to lecture her about the evils of eavesdropping. 

“I know I shouldn’t have been listening, b- but I heard you say my name,” Helen defended herself. “And so I’ve been thinking--” 

“Helen--”

“--I want to meet him,” Helen said anyway, the words rushing out of her mouth before her courage could dessert her. “I think I should get to meet him. It’s only fair.” 

Her mother sighed. “It’s a lot more complicated than that. And it’s none of your business, young lady. You know better than to listen in on your mother on the phone.” 

“But it _is_ my business,” Helen had insisted. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? If I really do have a brother, I-- I deserve to know him, he’s _my_ family and it’s only fair,” she asserted. 

“It’s not that simple,” Her mother protested. “It’s not-- we’re not going to discuss this any further, understand? You’d best just forget whatever you heard. There is _no_ way that’s ever going to happen.” 

(But it did, of course, because Helen was very, _very_ stubborn when she needed to be.)

Much to her parents’ dismay, she could not be convinced to leave the topic alone. She kept pestering them and pestering them until over time she wore them down, weeks into months of constantly making her case for why she felt she deserved to know until they finally relented. It was with extreme reluctance that her mother started making calls to people she hadn’t called in nearly a decade, friends with whom she’d long burned most of her bridges. 

Not quite all of them, it seemed, because with time her mother’s efforts eventually amounted to something. The other technical details of _how_ their meeting was finally arranged did not matter in the slightest to Helen. 

The important thing was that it was going to _happen,_ and her triumph, while short-lived, was immense. 

* * *

It was a day in what must have been early October or so that she finally got to meet him. He was dropped off at her house for their “play date”, as the adults involved had somewhat reluctantly referred to it as, which Helen recalled finding insultingly childish even then. 

Her brother had a sort of round, nonthreatening face, and his long hair was straw-blonde and curly in a way that Helen noted with great satisfaction to be much like her own brown mess of curls. He was tall for a child his age, and he was dressed warmly in a faded old orange scarf and a worn coat that his hands were stuffed into the pockets of. 

“Hi,” she said to him, unable to stop herself from grinning. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Helen,” she said politely, and held her hand out in greeting. 

But he did not move to shake her hand. He simply regarded it curiously, his own still held firmly out of sight. 

Helen’s smile faltered a little as the silence stretched on a beat too long for comfort. “What’s your name?” She prompted him eventually. 

He blinked back at her as if startled out of a daydream. “Michael,” he said simply. 

After another pause, as if realizing he’d forgotten to, he forcibly turned the corners of his mouth up and offered her an awkward, mechanical smile. 

Which, she had to admit, was… weird. 

There would be a handful of other things she would notice about him throughout the time they spent together that she found somewhat off-putting. 

She did get him to remove his coat at the door and hang it up; however, he declined to remove his scarf for reasons he did not explain. His hands, she noticed, were thin and covered in band-aids, and she tried to reason with herself that perhaps he had not shaken her hand earlier due to his own being injured. Her brother made hardly any eye contact with her the entire time, and whenever he did so, it was to stare intensely at her for a moment before quickly turning his gaze away. His eyes, too, she noticed-- she couldn’t quite seem to decide what color she thought they were. Most of the time he was quiet and did not volunteer much without first being spoken to, just watching her intently and listening-- though when he did speak he often had the strangest things to say, and a handful of the questions he asked her were odd enough to be somewhat disconcerting. 

Notably, his manner of speaking was very odd. At times it had a sort of slow and deliberate quality, meandering and over-eloquent if not downright cryptic in places-- or, alternately, he spoke quickly and clumsily, awkward and timid as if he were anxious about every word coming out of his mouth. 

She could have allowed herself to entertain second thoughts about this meeting, certainly, to let herself be thrown off enough to wonder if this was really a good idea. She could have perhaps chosen to view him as creepy, even. 

But, well, Helen was stubborn when she needed to be. She had already made up her mind quite some time ago-- she and her brother were going to be friends, and that was simply the end of it. No, she firmly shoved any feelings of unease aside. This was her brother. She had already decided that she loved him. 

(She hadn’t known it at the time, but that decision was the only reason either of them ever made it out alive.) 

He did start to relax a little around her as time went on. Eventually the adults stopped hovering around and left to attend to their own business, and with the grown-ups gone, Helen decided to give Michael a tour of her house. She led him around enthusiastically, showing him this and that. His eyes were always _looking_ where she was pointing-- rather intensely, at that-- but she had a hard time discerning any sort of reaction in them, especially at first. He did seem otherwise perfectly content to follow her lead, which Helen decided to take as a good sign. 

Helen had no problem filling in the silence left by Michael’s quietness, telling him a number of anecdotes about her time living here. Like the time her mother had seen a huge moth flutter in through the kitchen window and freaked out until her step-father came and calmly escorted it back outside, or the time Helen got bored while home alone and decided to start changing the positions of all the little knick-knacks on the shelves bit by bit over time until somebody finally noticed-- though, of course, she then denied any involvement, much to the bafflement of her parents. (That one did seem to amuse him, much to her delight.)

She asked him a number of questions about himself, which he answered somewhat sparingly to begin with, but he started to open up after a while. She learned that his favorite color was magenta and his favorite hobby was reading and his _least_ favorite season was winter because watching everything become barren and dark made him feel sad. She learned that his favorite holiday was Halloween because he thought dressing up was fun and yet hated horror because he got scared easily, and he was not a fan of Christmas because family gatherings were not nearly as fun in his family as they were in Helen’s. 

To that note, Helen started to observe quietly that she appeared to be the more fortunate one of the two of them. 

She learned from Michael that their shared father was, _apparently,_ in prison for reasons he did not specify, which was one of a very short list of not-very-fun facts Helen knew about the man at all. She learned that Michael’s mother had apparently gone missing when he was young, and had never been found. Michael had been raised by his grandfather for several years, and then after he passed away of a sudden heart attack when Michael was six, he was sent to live with his aunt. At that, Michael had frowned darkly, his expression becoming stormy, and quietly he told her he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. 

Helen felt bad about accidentally making him upset, so she suggested they go upstairs to her room and play with her toys. It took them a while to find the right game to play, but as Helen was showing him her various collections of figurines and stuffed animals and the like, she noticed the way Michael’s eye caught on a particular set of pens among the art supplies she kept on her desk. 

“Do you like to draw, Michael?” She asked casually. 

“No,” Michael said, which surprised her somewhat. 

Then after a moment he amended, “I don’t really know how, I mean… n- not very well, at least, I’m no good at it.” 

“Oh, nonsense,” said Helen. “Who cares if you’re _good_ at it?” 

“I… do?” Michael said timidly. “I don’t really-- y- you know, arts and crafts, I’m rubbish at that sort of thing, th- they always come out wrong. Guess I’m just… not very artistic?” 

“Draw a picture with me,” Helen prompted him anyway. “Come on, it’ll be fun.” 

“I mean, well, if you insist,” Michael mumbled, fidgeting. 

So Helen got out her paper and markers and colored pencils, and wordlessly she handed Michael one of the pens from the set he’d been eyeing, which was really what this was all about. 

It was an odd sort, filled with swirling, glittery ink of a wide array of colors, such that writing or drawing with it would produce a shifting hue over time. She did not miss the way his face lit up when he drew an experimental squiggle with it and noticed the way the ink shimmered in the light-- it was probably the most genuinely excited she’d seen him thus far. The activity they devised was simple but satisfying: one of them would draw a picture, and the other would color it in. 

All of the effort Helen had put into fighting for the opportunity to meet him at all-- in that moment, sitting beside her brother with a colored pencil in hand and watching his expression slip into a sort of unguarded focus as he filled a page with a simple pattern of daisies, the quiet joy that showed on his face when she told him honestly that she was having fun and thought his drawings were nice… In that moment, everything was perfect, everything was exactly what she’d hoped it would be. 

But that moment did not last forever. It must have been at least an hour or two they spent like that, but still, it was over far too soon. Within it, though, there was one other thing that happened that’d always stayed with her. 

One of the drawings that Michael had done for her to color was a picture of two people standing next to a big house-- a drawing of the two of them, she realized. She set about coloring in the drawing, and when she reached the face of the figure with long, wildly curly hair she took to be Michael, she turned to him and asked, “by the way, what color are your eyes?” 

And then Michael did something odd, which was that he said, “I don’t know.” Helen frowned, confused, and then he leaned towards her and said, “you tell me.” 

She looked at his eyes. Or, she tried to. 

Something strange happened. It felt like her brain was short circuiting. It hadn’t been quite so noticeable until she was actively trying her hardest to do so, but she could not force her eyes to meet his for more than a moment, her gaze slipping off of his like a magnet being repelled. As to what color they were-- the harder she tried to look, the more she tried to force her brain and her vision to cooperate, she started to feel… dizzy. 

It… It was a color that didn’t exist, she decided faintly. It hurt to try to comprehend. She couldn’t stop looking at it. She had to stop looking at it, or she was going to pass out. 

And then all at once, Michael blinked and turned his gaze away, and the feeling subsided, leaving Helen with the faintest hint of a headache throbbing in her temples. 

“Well?” Michael prompted her, seeming almost _anxious,_ like her answer mattered to him. “What color are they?” 

What a question. She certainly did not have the right answer. 

But what she ended up saying, after a beat, was “I think they’re gray.” 

If anything, that was the one color they absolutely, definitely _weren’t,_ which is why she ended up choosing it. Somehow, this seemed to come as a relief to Michael, and he visibly relaxed at her reply. 

“Gray, then,” he agreed, pleased, and so Helen colored the eyes of the picture a pale ice-gray and tried not to let her hands shake as she did. 

After she finished with that one, her appetite for coloring had diminished rather significantly, and conversely, her desire for a snack was starting to become bothersome. “Are you hungry?” She asked him.

“Sure,” he said. 

“Then let’s go ahead and clean up here and get something to eat,” she said. Michael helped her put away the art supplies-- eye color discrepancies aside, that last drawing they’d done was rather nice, and Helen found herself feeling quite proud of it. 

“Hey, we should sign our names on this one,” she had said. “You know, like how real artists do. They always put their signatures on their best works!” 

Michael agreed readily, signing his name underneath hers on the back in that glittering ink he was so fond of, and then adding the date at Helen’s request. Afterwards he tried to hand the pen over to her, but she just shook her head, smiling. 

“Keep it,” she told him. 

“Wh- What?” Michael stammered, “I can’t do that! I- I wouldn’t want to take it from you!” 

Helen laughed. “I have a whole set of them, see?” She gestured. “It’s no big deal. Besides, you clearly like it a lot, so just let me give it to you. It’ll be a present, okay?” 

“If you insist,” Michael said uncertainly, though a timid little smile crept onto his face. 

“And I do,” Helen said, beaming. “Come on, let’s go downstairs.” 

He followed her, or-- he did for about seven steps out the door, and then he suddenly stopped, becoming completely still as he peered out onto the upper landing. 

“Michael?” Helen said, looking back over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” 

He was staring at the wall. 

“Is your…” he paused. “Is your house feeling alright?” Michael asked. 

_“What?”_ Helen asked, bewildered. “What is that supposed to mean? Obviously, it’s just fine.” 

Michael just looked at her for a long moment, apprehensive and clearly unconvinced. 

He shifted uneasily and said, “Are you sure?” 

* * *

The door was there when they returned. 

It had certainly not been there when they left, nor _ever,_ because Helen knew that there simply could not be a door in the space where it was. It was a wall that faced outside, on the second story, and Helen knew for a _fact_ that what was on the other side of that wall should have been a long drop to the garden below. There just… wasn’t a door there, and then there was. 

Michael was the first one to notice it as they came back upstairs on their way back to Helen’s room-- he stopped suddenly, frozen with shock, and when she turned around to face him she saw that his face was pale and his eyes were wide. He was staring at the wall once again, as he had been before they went downstairs, and she was about to ask him what was the matter when she unthinkingly followed his gaze and her eyes fell upon it. 

There it sat, in a place where it could not have existed. 

It was a bright, oversaturated yellow color with a black handle, gleefully garish as though it were well aware that it defied all logic and reveled in that fact-- like if it were going to exist at all it may as well be headache-inducing in every sense of the word, jarring and unbearable to look at. 

“What is inside of that door,” Michael asked her in a strange voice, not daring to move an inch. 

Helen was… shocked, to say the least. She regarded it with trepidation for a long moment, dumbfounded. 

“Where does that lead,” Michael said again. It wasn’t a question. 

“I don’t know,” Helen answered anyway, unable to tear her eyes away from it. 

She took a step towards it. Suddenly, she felt her brother wordlessly reach out and grip her hand. It wasn’t enough to stop her. 

There was something… dreamlike about it, something slow about her movements, as if she were transfixed. She took another spellbound step forwards, and this time Michael followed. 

The handle was… warm. 

She didn’t remember opening the door, is the thing. 

She remembered the sense of dread that filled her as she looked at it, as her hand connected with the handle, creeping and ominous. She remembered, even more distantly, the feeling of her brother’s hand tighten its grip on her own, nails digging into her skin. She remembered being afraid. She remembered being very afraid in that moment, yes, maybe more afraid than she’d ever been before, but she did not remember _opening_ that door. For all she could ever understand, she was standing inside her house one moment, and then suddenly she wasn’t. 

The next thing she knew was the sound of the door swinging closed behind her with an ominous _click,_ a terrible sense of finality resounding though its echo. 

What she was standing in was a long, windowless corridor, stretching unendingly into the distance and bending almost imperceptibly off to the left. The walls were covered with a swirling pattern in a nauseating shade of lime green, and there was a thick black rug running down the center of the faded yellow carpet in front of them. 

“Oh, this is very bad,” Michael remarked, and all Helen could do was nod weakly. 

The first thing they did was turn around, of course. Reason dictated that if there was a door on one side, then there had to _be_ a door on the opposite side, even if it was locked or jammed… which was what Helen was expecting, in so far as she was expecting anything at all. What they were standing in front of now, though-- it was not a door at all as far as they could tell. At first glance, she actually thought it was a mirror. 

Upon further examination, it was not a mirror but instead a disturbingly realistic portrait of Helen and Michael standing side by side. 

That is, it was realistic in so far as Helen appeared much the way she would have expected to appear in such a thing, though there was a look of worry on her face in it. Michael, however… 

In the painting, his hands were laced with gashes and cuts instead of the bandages that covered them now, and more disturbingly, the boy in the painting had no eyes. Where they ought to have been, there were just two black marks, irregular splashes of dark that lent a sinister quality to the depiction and set Helen on edge. 

“I don’t like that,” Michael stated simply, fidgeting with the ends of his faded orange scarf. “That is not a good sign.” 

They looked at the unyielding wall through which they had ostensibly come, and then down the length of the narrow corridor. It was all so surreal. Helen could hardly believe this was _happening,_ she had no idea what she was meant to _do_ in a situation like this, but this time it was Michael who took the first step forward. 

“Shall we?” He said flatly, and, well, it wasn’t like either of them had any other choice. They started to walk. 

Michael’s eyes kept darting around as they traversed the halls, but aside from that he appeared shockingly composed in a way she had not seen from him thus far. He led the way, which was just as well, because what with the bright colors and jarring scenery, it was all a little too much for Helen. 

The walls were dotted with what appeared to be mirrors at first glance-- and some of these were indeed mirrors, but much like before, a number of them were paintings or photos of the space from different angles. Some of them even depicted the two of them as they walked. None of them depicted Michael’s eyes. 

That, alongside the dizzying, shifting neon of the walls, the sickly yellow of the carpet, the stark void-black of the rug… it gave Helen a headache. She turned her eyes down to cut down on the sensory onslaught and walked in her brother’s footsteps, trying not to work herself into a panic. 

This time, it was Michael who filled in the silence. “Helen, I have a question,” he would say. 

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Michael asked first. 

“Of course not, I-- I’ve never seen anything like this place before in my life,” Helen said. 

“How about in your dreams?” Michael said, his voice oddly neutral. 

“What?” Helen frowned, confused. “No. Why?” 

Michael just shook his head, which she didn’t see because she wasn’t looking up. 

“Helen, I have a question,” he would say again in a few minutes. “Do you trust yourself?” 

“I suppose I must,” Helen answered, although the question in and of itself was somewhat alarming, to put it mildly. “Why?” 

Michael did not explain. 

“That is a good thing,” he did say after a moment. “Don’t forget that, then,” he said, and was quiet again for some time as they walked. 

“Helen, I have a question.” 

“Sure,” she said, already getting the feeling that she was not going to like it, or any of his questions at all for that matter. 

“Do people treat you like you’re… weird?” 

“Well… sure,” she admitted. 

Michael hummed uncertainly to that. “Do people ever make you feel like you don’t belong? Do people ever make you feel like there’s something wrong with you?” 

“Michael, you’re kind of bumming me out,” she deflected, uncomfortable, and he dropped it. 

But only for another minute or two. 

“Helen, I have a question,” he said once again. “Does this world want you in it?” 

“What?” 

“Do you feel like you belong to it?” He insisted. “Do you feel grounded within it? Your reality-- do you feel connected to it?” 

“Michael, you’re freaking me out,” Helen admitted, her voice shaking just a little. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, something strange in his tone. 

Helen’s head hurt. Helen’s feet hurt. She was scared and tired, and she wanted to go _home._

“Helen,” he said once more, “I have a question.” 

She wanted so badly to snap at him. She didn’t. On purpose, she didn’t. 

“Anything,” she said. 

“Will anyone notice if you’re gone?” Michael asked. “If you go missing, will anyone mind?” 

“My parents will notice,” Helen said firmly. 

“And you’re sure?” 

“Of course they’ll notice,” she insisted. “When they realize I’m not home, they’ll come looking for me. They’ll come and find us,” she said, willing herself to believe it. “Both of us. Obviously, my parents would notice.” 

Michael hummed in reply, something strange in the tone of it, almost sad. 

“Thank you,” he said at last, seeming satisfied. 

He didn’t ask her anything else after that. 

When next Helen dared to glance up, her brother was gone. 

* * *

The first thing she had done, of course, was call his name-- frantically, over and over. No response. 

Then she’d tried running forward in a hurry, thinking that he must have outpaced her and gone too far ahead without noticing that she was lagging behind. But the hallways-- every so often there would be another path branching sharply off to the right, and at first Michael had ignored these as he’d led her through them, but at some point she remembered that he’d given up trying to stay to a straight path and he’d started taking the turns as they approached-- and now she had no idea which of these turns he could have possibly taken anymore. 

The next thing she’d tried was turning back, which did not work. Every time she turned around, all she saw was a dead-end wall about ten or fifteen feet behind her, containing only a mirror-- the path she’d come from, it was just… _gone._

This had to be a nightmare, she’d told herself listlessly. Nothing this terrible could possibly be real. 

Then the idea that she could actually be _right_ about that sank in, and she felt a sharp sense of foreboding. 

This place… it couldn’t possibly exist. The colors hurt her eyes to look at and the sharp, disorienting angles of the maze-like hallways hurt her mind to try to comprehend-- the whole thing had a nauseating, world-defying sense of _wrongness_ about it that filled her with dread. It was surreal and horrifying, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt like this whole place had to exist outside of reality. 

She was alone, now. Helen took a shuddery breath, in, out, trying to suppress tears. She would be fine, she told herself. She had to keep it together, had to keep searching for Michael and for a way out. 

It was just-- she was scared, and that was-- there was only so much she could do about that. It was just that she was alone, and that her brother had vanished, and she had no idea where she was, or if she was _anywhere,_ or how to get _home_ and it was just that she was so lost and so tired and scared, so scared, and-- oh, so much for being brave and not crying. 

She buried her head in her hands and slumped against the wall, her shoulders shaking. 

It was too much. It was too much. 

* * *

She didn’t know if time existed in this place, is the thing. If it did, Helen certainly couldn’t remember how long it had been. 

It could have been hours. It could have been days. Weeks. Months, maybe-- she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t bring herself to be sure about anything, anymore. 

Or maybe she was just imagining how long it felt. 

She could have been imagining a lot of things, for all she knew. She couldn’t be sure. She’d been walking for quite some time-- this she knew to be true only by the dull aching pain in her feet. She was… She was looking for her brother. She’d come in with Michael and there was no way she was going to leave without him. That much she could be sure about. 

_Unless,_ whispered her mind, which had become a treacherous and poison-tongued thing. 

Unless, of course… Michael had never really existed, and she was just deluding herself, said her mind. 

Unless she had imagined him all along, perhaps-- hers was a lonely house, after all, and she’d never had any friends before, right? This _Michael_ she could have sworn she remembered-- he could only be a figment of her imagination, her mind told her, he could only be a sad attempt at an imaginary friend conjured up to distract her from this nightmarish reality. If he was real, her mind told her, she would have remembered more about him. 

Real people remembered things about their real brothers. What their faces looked like. What color their eyes were. What their voices sounded like. She could not be trusted to remember these things, or so her mind kept telling her. 

_Stop that,_ she thought back to herself, annoyed. God, if only her brain would be quiet. She was _going_ to find her brother if it was the last thing she did, her mind’s attempts to convolute her be damned. 

_You will never find him,_ her mind whispered angrily, doubt curling at the edges of her consciousness like sinister, creeping vines. 

_Shut up,_ she thought firmly in response, willful and determined. 

Helen was stubborn when she needed to be. She needed that now. 

* * *

She saw a shape at the far edge of the corridor. 

It was not a human shape. It was barrelling towards her. 

She only got the briefest, most panicked glimpse of the thing, her mind reeling and her heart nearly stopping at the sight. There was something _off_ about the figure of that thing that was approaching her now with alarming speed. Something about the way it moved was incomprehensible, like she was watching it through rippling water-- she struggled to understand what she was looking at. Its hands… they were misshapen and wickedly pointed, and Helen seized up with fear at the sight of it. 

Then-- it was the strangest thing. For a moment, as she tried to hurriedly look at the being’s face, she caught sight of a wild flash of a color that made her unfathomably dizzy, just for an instant.

 _Wait,_ she thought desperately. That color, that sense of disorientation-- Helen _knew_ that nonexistent color. 

She shut her eyes tight-- her instincts were screaming at her to move, to dive out of the way, to do something-- _anything--_ but with every ounce of will in her body she disobeyed. She stood perfectly still. The being collided with her. 

And it threw its arms around her, wrapping her up in a terrified hug. 

“Michael,” Helen gasped, nearly sobbing with relief. She hugged him back for all she was worth, allowing herself for one terrified instant to set everything else aside and just be glad that they’d found each other again. 

Then reality caught up with her, and she quickly became very alarmed once more. 

“Don’t open your eyes,” Michael said to her. “Please don’t open your eyes.” 

This immediately made her very anxious to open her eyes. 

“Wh- Why not?” Helen asked. “What’s wrong? Are you alright? What happened to you? Wh- Where did you go, is everything--?” 

“Helen, I’m sorry,” Michael said. “For everything. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get separated from you, I didn’t mean for any of this to…” He stopped. “But it’s going to be alright, now. Okay? Listen to me,” he said very seriously. 

There was something strange about his voice. 

It had this quality about it that was just slightly _off--_ it was almost as if… it sounded almost like a very quiet recording, with the volume turned way up so as to be audible, ever so slightly faint and distant and laced with a quiet hiss of fuzzy interference. 

“Listen,” Michael repeated. “I can get us out of here. I-- I’m sure I know the way, now. But you can’t open your eyes anymore, or…” He paused for a moment. “Things… will start to go wrong.” 

Michael took her hands in his. There was something wrong with his hands. 

“I promise,” he said, “I promise I’ll get you home safe. We’re getting out of here together. I promise.” 

His hands-- they were… _heavy._ Too big. Fingers didn’t have that many joints. Fingers didn’t feel that sharp. Like if she gripped his hand too hard, she would cut herself on the bones. 

“Trust me,” Michael said as she hesitated silently, a hint of something that might have been desperation creeping into his voice. 

She was scared. She was so, so scared. 

But this was her brother. Helen had already made the decision that she loved him. 

She made her choice. 

“Okay,” she said, fighting to keep her voice unwavering. “I trust you.” 

If he noticed her hands shaking in his, he didn’t say anything. 

* * *

Her brother led her, hand in terrible hand, through the twisting lengths of those maddening halls. With her eyes closed, she had no way of knowing where they were going, what turns they were taking, or if their surroundings were changing at all. It made her nervous, not being able to see-- not being able to know where exactly it was that he was taking her. 

Every so often, she would feel the sudden, unbearable urge to _look,_ if only for a moment. Without fail, every time she began to feel it, right before she could actually act upon it her brother would say, “Helen, don’t open your eyes.” 

“Why not?” Helen eventually asked. 

Her brother was silent for another moment. “I am worried,” he said eventually. “I don’t want it to get any worse.” This reply did not make her feel a whole lot better. 

After he’d reminded her not to look for the seventh time, she said, “what about you?” 

“What do you mean?” Michael responded. 

“If you’re so worried about what’ll happen to me if I open my eyes,” Helen explained, “then what about you? Are _your_ eyes open?” 

“What about me?” Michael repeated, something strange in his tone. He was quiet for a long moment, and then he took a deep, shuddery breath and laughed. 

It was a strange sound, echoing and distant, and only about half a step removed from a sob. 

“Don’t worry about that anymore,” Michael told her solemnly. 

This, of course, made her very, very worried. 

She gripped his hand a little tighter, though for exactly what reason she couldn’t quite say. He squeezed her hand back ever so faintly, and they kept walking, because it was all they could do. Michael kept leading and Helen kept following, step after careful step, trying to ignore the sinking sense of dread she felt as she turned his words over in her mind. 

And then, suddenly, they came to a stop, and Michael let out a small, devastated _oh._

“Even after all this…” Michael started, his voice quiet. Then he said, “Only one of us is going to make it out of here, Helen. I suppose I don’t need to tell you which one.” 

Helen stiffened up, a sharp chill gripping her at his words-- for a single moment she felt certain that she’d made the wrong choice, that she was naïve in believing that it had been safe to put her faith in him and believe that his intentions were kind. This was where he betrayed her, she thought wildly-- this was where he left her behind to be trapped here forever. 

And then she felt something soft and fabric being draped gently over her shoulders, a tremendous sense of care in the motion of it. 

Helen, with her eyes closed, could not discern what they were standing before, but this is what Michael saw: 

It was a portrait of Helen. It was a picture not at all unlike the one they had seen when they were first cast into these halls-- very nearly a mirror image of the portrait that had covered their entrance. 

This was their exit. It was a portrait of Helen. 

Michael was no longer in it. 

In fact, the only evidence that he’d ever been beside her in it at all was the two black marks that had stood in place of his eyes, voiding them out; they were now painted against an empty background beside his sister, alone. 

So this was the end. He trembled with understanding. 

“The world would miss you more,” Michael told her gently, his voice shaking with grief. “Don’t worry about me anymore.” 

This was the end of pitiful, doomed Michael Shelley; he was born a burden, he lived for a handful of miserable, pointless, too-short years, and then he was never seen again. It was almost fitting somehow, and it _hurt,_ it cut him to the core. He could have cried. He could have _laughed._

“What?” Helen said, aghast. “M- Michael, what do you mean? Aren’t you-- you think I would just leave you behind? What are you saying?? You have to come _with_ me!” 

“No,” he said, smiling sadly even though he knew she could not see it. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible anymore. It’s too late for me, already. Or I suppose perhaps it has always been too late. I’ve seen far too much. But… it’s not too late for you.” 

“Well-- I’m not leaving without you!!” Helen said, her mind reeling as she rapidly tried to process the situation that was unfolding. “Th- This isn’t fair, you can’t make me-- I won’t go!! I’m not leaving you here!!” 

He laughed then, the sound of it echoing and distorted, filling Helen’s heart with a sense of panicked despair. “Yes, you will,” Michael said. “You’re going to be just fine, alright? I know it’s hard, but you’re going to make it through, I know you will.” 

“Michael,” Helen started protestingly, urgently, gripping his hand in hers as tightly as she dared. “No, you can’t-- you don’t-- don’t you dare, y- you can’t just _leave_ me--!” 

“It’s alright,” he told her, and his voice was devastated and reassuring and resigned, a sense of finality in his acceptance of it all. “I should have known,” he said quietly, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about me anymore, okay? It was always going to be like this-- it’s not your fault.”

“Michael, please, I-- I don’t understand,” Helen said desperately, her voice wavering. 

“I know,” Michael said softly. “Thank you for everything. I mean it. I’m sorry for meeting you, but it was nice knowing you.” he paused, taking an unsteady breath. “Goodbye, Helen. I’m gonna miss you.” 

Then he put both of his hands on her shoulders and pushed, and the world came undone. 

She screamed-- of course she did. She passed through the deceptive illusion of the portrait on the wall, and it welcomed the subject of its depiction with open arms and an open maw. She was falling, and now with no one to stop her from doing so, she opened her eyes within infinite blackness and cast one final glance up, back at Michael, as she fell through empty space. 

He appeared to her just as twisted as she had suspected. He looked distorted, almost _amplified_ in some way-- taller, his hair longer and curlier, his eyes more mind-bendingly incomprehensible to behold than they had been before. He was a monster. He was her friend. He was her brother, and he was getting rapidly farther and farther away from her by the moment. 

As she watched, he raised one of his twisted hands up to his eyes, seemingly to wipe away a tear as he watched her tumble into the unyielding darkness, and-- the last thing she saw was what appeared for all the world to be a door swinging shut on him with an ominous _click._

* * *

When Helen came to, she found herself lying face-down on the ground, on the wet concrete sidewalk a few blocks from her house. 

The next thing Helen knew was a dull, throbbing ache in her head, in her feet, accompanied by the sensation of a stinging pain in her hands and knees. She blinked her eyes open blearily, and the watery, fading light of the evening seared her weakened retinas, causing her to hiss pitifully in confusion and pain. For a moment, she remembered nothing, and nothing made sense. For one long, terrible moment, she wasn’t sure if she remembered who she even _was._ She hadn’t known it at the time, but later, she would come to realize that she’d lost three days of time in that place by the time she’d finally managed to escape. 

Eventually, she had to pick herself up on the ground, shivering in the cold. She felt something soft wrapped around her shoulders, and unthinkingly she started to draw it closer around her, but-- something made her stop. She carefully pulled it away from her and held it up to look at. 

It was a scarf, faded and orange in color. 

Michael’s scarf. 

And then recognition slotted into place. She wanted to scream. If only she had the energy to scream. She started to tremble, and it was only partially from the chill. 

She was exhausted, and devastated, and at this point she was nearly numb with fear, but… she took a step forward, and then another, weak and shaky as she was. And she started to walk, because there was nothing else she could do. 

She managed to make her way home safe, thankfully, and as her house came into view her pace began to quicken until she broke into a run, everything becoming a blur of confusion and panic-- she threw open the front door and ran straight to her parents’ room, much to their surprise, and then to their extreme concern when she started to shout and cry and stammer on about the endless hallways on the upper landing that ate her brother. 

They’d actually had the gall to ask her if she’d had a nightmare. 

As if that could ever even _begin_ to cover it. Like it could ever be that easy to explain away, like it hadn’t just single-handedly upended her entire life as she knew it. 

They hadn’t even _believed_ her when she told them that Michael was still trapped in those halls, the halls that tried to steal her away from reality. They just looked at each other, faces full of alarm and concern. They just looked at her with fear and unrecognition in their eyes. As if this could ever be something she’d just made up for attention. Like they thought she was going mad. And maybe she _was_ going mad, but in that moment she didn’t think she would ever forgive them for having the audacity to ask her who she was even _talking_ about. 

_You can’t be serious,_ she had said, desperate and nearly hysterical with grief. _You know about Michael._

They had just looked at each other and shaken their heads. 

For a moment, she had thought that they were just being snide, because they had hidden his existence from her for so long, and they had not cared for him in the way that she cared for him. The perceived slight filled her with so much dizzying fury she thought she was going to pass out. 

And then she’d realized, the more she tried to convince them, that they were _serious._

Helen’s face became pale as realization dawned on her. They really had no idea. The more she stood there and tried to explain herself, the more bewildered and alarmed her parents became, until it started to sink in that Helen might very well have been the only person in the world who knew or cared that he’d ever existed at all. Her parents had started mumbling something about her perhaps needing to see a doctor, and at that point Helen finally gave up. 

Feeling numb, she made up some halfhearted lie about not feeling well and hurriedly excused herself, dragging herself back upstairs to her room on unsteady feet. 

She looked for it, of course, when she reached the upper landing. But the door that could not have existed was no more, and there was no sign that it had ever been there at all. Helen collapsed into her bed at last, and hoped bleakly that she would awaken to find that it had all been a nightmare after all. 

It wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. 

And still she would wake up the next morning into the same devastating, unfair existence, alive and largely unharmed despite everything else, and she would have to make up an excuse to her parents as to her frantic behavior the previous night. 

Yes, she would awaken the next morning, and the next, and the next, and she would never hear another mention of her brother’s existence again. She would have no choice but to force herself to try to resume living her life. Like the foundations of the whole thing hadn’t just been shaken to the core. Like she could ever go back to _normal_ after this. 

(She would have no choice. Kicking and screaming as it was, this reality had her back in its grasp, and this time it wasn’t going to let her go. Michael had made sure of that.) 

* * *

To her credit, she never did forget. Despite everything, she never quite let go of it. 

Time went on, as it was wont to do. As it did so, things slowly started to settle back into some degree of normalcy, as much as she’d hated that in the beginning. 

The visceral horror and sorrow she felt dulled to a distant ache. She got used to her lonely house, or maybe it was just that she herself had become less lonely. At length she finally managed to make some friends, even-- good friends, people who cared for her and held her up when she felt down, people who made her laugh and smile, and that… helped. It didn’t fix everything, thought it certainly counted for something. 

It wasn’t easy, but it was the reality that had welcomed her back into it, like it or not. She had no choice but to take its sharp edges into her hands and say _you have hurt me and I will never forgive you_ until it didn’t ring true anymore, until it stopped feeling so bitter and spiteful to hold onto. Because she _had_ to hold onto it. All of it. 

She didn’t like it, but… it was hers, this reality, and it had cost a lot. That was something she could never allow herself to forget, and it took her a long time to adjust to the awful weight of it. It took her a long, _long_ time to accept that after everything she would still never get to see her brother ever again. 

(She was wrong about that, of course, which she was soon to discover.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and sorry for the delay! Unfortunately a lot of things came up that prevented me from working on this project for a while. :( I should hopefully be getting back to posting regularly now-- however, **I’m going to have to update every other week** instead of every week for a while until I get everything back together again (though **I do intend to return to once a week updates**.) Hopefully it didn’t seem like I’d abandoned this project, I’ve come way too far for that, lol. 
> 
> I can’t BEGIN to tell you how excited I was to finally get to this specific chapter, because… this is the first thing I ever wrote for this story! :) Back when I first came up with this AU altogether, the backstory for Michael and Helen and this specific event in The Spiral was one of my first ever concepts-- I wrote the first draft of this chapter way back on the first of March. I can hardly believe that it’s been over half a year since I started… 20+ chapters and 70k words later, this chapter is finally here!!! 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading. Barring any more unforeseen delays, I’m hoping to have the next chapter up on the 10th or 11th of October. Until next time.


	24. Chapter 24

The middle of the school cafeteria, right in front of everyone, was decidedly _not_ Michael’s favorite place to have earth-shattering realizations and long-overdue reunions. 

As agreed, he met Helen at the Richardson house some time after school, reluctant to part ways with her but promising to explain everything. Or, at least, as much as he had the power to explain-- as he saw it, theirs was a story of two parts and she had the other half. What they would find is that Michael understood much of it and remembered only in pieces, while Helen remembered nearly everything in sharp, painful clarity and understood very little of it. Together, hopefully, they would finally be able to put some of the pieces together. 

“It’s different in here than I remember,” Michael remarked a little lamely as Helen dragged another chair over for him to take a seat, looking around her room. It bore very little resemblance to the way he had known it, a certain degree of clean, reserved maturity about it that it’d lacked in his memory. 

“It’s been a long time,” Helen responded as she turned her desk chair around to face him, looking tense and apprehensive. 

“So it has,” Michael agreed distantly. He shook his head a little. “And I suppose that really is as good a place to start as any. How long _has_ it been? As you can imagine, my ability to keep track of linear time in that place has been… not great.” 

Helen considered for a moment. “Seven years, I want to say?” 

“Goodness,” Michael mumbled under his breath. 

“No-- eight,” Helen amended. “As of fairly recently, here.” 

“Eight years, I’ve been gone,” Michael echoed faintly. 

He took a moment to turn the number over in his head. Eight years since the incident… it was dizzying, to think he’d lost that much time. 

Still, there was something about it that rang sharp and true all the same. 

“Would you-- elaborate on that?” Helen said, struggling to find the right words. “What… _happened_ to you? Because you say you’ve been… gone… and I would certainly have to agree with that much, seems as from my perspective you were just-- there, for one day, and then you… well, then you weren’t.” 

Michael considered. “Those halls,” he began. “That place. It is not, strictly speaking, part of this reality. I’m sure you’ve gathered that much. A person cannot simultaneously exist and not exist. When I say _gone,_ or _outside of reality,_ that is what I mean-- I was in the space between existence and nonexistence, the-- the place that is not a place, if you will.” 

“And what do you _know_ about that place?” Helen asked apprehensively. 

“Can _anything_ be truly known about such a place?” Michael said faintly. “In the face of such a thing, can anything truly be said to be understood at all? Is anything ever truly comprehensible, or are we all just inventing clever, convenient little lies to categorize an existence that defies itself? Can we ever truly understand--” 

Helen frowned at him and said, “I mean, I’m going to have to guess _no,_ but you’re gonna have to work with me here. Come on.” 

“Sorry,” Michael said quickly, suddenly self-conscious, and Helen laughed. 

“...I missed you, you know,” she said, smiling a little. “Cryptic nonsense and all.” 

“S- Sorry, I’m sorry,” Michael said again, his face becoming red. “It’s, um, kind of a reflex, I’ll-- um, I’ll be more straightforward.” 

“If you even can,” Helen quipped, “your track record with doing so for as long as _I’ve_ known you has not been very impressive.” 

“I’ll _try_ to be more straightforward,” Michael amended sheepishly. “I’ll make a _concerted effort_ not to speak in outright ominous riddles, but that’s the best I can offer you, so you’ll just have to accept it.” 

“Alright,” said Helen, seeming amused but satisfied with his reply, but then her expression turned sad. 

“I really am… I’m shocked to see you. I spent--” Helen broke off, laughing nervously a little, “--a _long_ time trying to… work through everything, I thought I was never gonna see you again-- I thought you were just… gone forever.” 

“I… yeah,” Michael murmured, not sure what to say. 

“And now… here you are again,” Helen said. “It’s just-- it’s funny. I used to think endlessly of what I’d _say_ to you if I ever got the chance again, what I’d want to ask you or tell you, or… I- I don’t know. Here you are, and now I almost don’t know where to even _begin,”_ she said with a small laugh. 

“That is fair,” Michael said softly. “I’m sorry. It seems like I’ve only ever caused you nothing but trouble,” he said with a nervous, apologetic smile. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Helen said firmly. “Whatever else, just know that I’m… I’m glad you’re here. Okay?” 

“Okay,” Michael said a little uncertainly. 

“So…” Helen tapped her fingers on the armrest of her chair, considering. “Let’s get back to business. You didn’t exist for eight years, then.” 

“That is correct,” Michael confirmed. “Not in this reality, no.” 

“And you… just recently, what, escaped from it? That place?” Helen asked. 

“I think so,” Michael agreed. “It’s-- I don’t… M- My memory…” he fumbled ineffectively, and sighed. “Yes. To the best of my knowledge, this is a recent development.” 

“So… hm. Do you know… how long you’ve been, I guess-- _back_ for, if that makes any sense? Like is this recent as of _today,_ or…?” Helen said. 

“No,” Michael said. “But see, that’s the part I’m having trouble with. However it is I did manage to… escape, as it were-- I have no recollection of exactly how, or precisely when. My time in that place is… It’s coming back in bits and pieces, but until I saw you today, it’s almost like, well…” He paused for a moment, and then shook his head. “As far as I can tell, when I came back to this world, those eight years I lost-- my mind filled in all the gaps for me. It gave me this whole past made of lies, and the rest of the world followed that lead.” 

“That’s… certainly something,” Helen said. “So you really had no idea, then?” 

“I didn’t realize,” Michael agreed. “Any of it, I didn’t… I didn’t even know there was anything _to_ realize, until very recently. It’ll take me some time, I think, to sort through everything, separate the truth from the rest of it all,” he said apologetically. 

Helen nodded slowly. “When I first got out, it took me a long time to really process what happened, too,” she said sympathetically. “I think I understand.” 

Michael offered her a small smile, and then he paused. “To answer your question, that is…” he said after a moment, “the more I think about it, I suppose, the first _real_ memory I have, b- back in reality I mean, that would have to be…” he trailed off briefly, considering. 

He seemingly remembered a lot of things that did not actually happen, as it were, but there had been something ever-so-slightly _off_ about those memories even before he’d fully understood why-- he tried to push those aside, unhelpful fabrications obscuring the real details. As far back as he could reach, the first thing that felt truly solid in his grasp was… 

“I… think… I showed up late for class, that first day back,” he said slowly, uncertainly, testing the weight of the words as he spoke. “I didn’t have my notebook. I had to borrow a sheet of paper from the boy sitting beside me.” 

That had been Jon, of course. It was a strange thing to remember, perhaps, but the reason he recalled it with such clarity was the way the other boy had looked at Michael as he arrived for class that day. There had been an unmistakable, hostile unrecognition in Jon’s eyes, and _that_ was the thing that Michael remembered most clearly. 

_Ah,_ he understood now. Jon had never been fooled at all, had he? Jon had always known there was something wrong with him. 

“Er, the point is-- I want to say that was right in the middle of October,” Michael concluded, shaking his head a little as if to dispel a troubling thought. “So, what day is it today?” 

“Twenty-fifth of November,” Helen said. 

“Right,” said Michael. “So that gives me about a month, nearly a month and a half, since I escaped from that place.” 

“I see,” Helen said, considering the information. 

Michael fidgeted a little. “I’m sorry. As I said, if I’d known, I- I would have come looking for you sooner…” 

“Not your fault,” Helen said a little brusquely. “You say you don’t remember how exactly you got out?” 

Michael shook his head. “I have… some theories. I don’t remember actually _doing_ so, however. As far as I can remember, I was inside of those hallways for a long, long time, and then… nothing. I don’t know.” 

“What _do_ you know?” Helen asked again. “About that place? What was it, really?” 

“The Spiral,” Michael said, his expression becoming distant, “is how I came to know it. Whether that is the hallways themselves or the force that holds power there, I do not know, and neither do I recall how I came by that name at all.” 

Helen considered. _“Spiral,_ huh… that does seem… apt,” she said finally. “That name, I mean. It fits. It’s not even that the halls were exactly spiral-shaped-- they were, like-- they didn’t exactly…” she fumbled, making a vague gesture with her hands. “They didn’t behave in any way that made _sense,”_ she said, frustrated by her inability to describe them. 

“By design, no,” Michael agreed with some slight humor, “but I do believe I know what you’re getting at.” 

“No, but it’s just,” Helen continued, agitated. “I know what they looked like, is the thing. I know _exactly_ what they look like. It’s just that whatever words could be used to accurately describe it, they just don’t _exist._ It’s like-- if only I could just--” 

Helen turned her chair around suddenly. She began to rummage around in her desk, and then after a moment Michael began to hear the noise of a pen scratching furiously over paper. 

“...What are you doing?” Michael asked eventually. 

“Well,” she said, “I’m-- I’m trying to draw you a _map.”_

“A map,” Michael repeated. Helen drew another sharp, aggravated line. 

“But it just doesn’t work,” she continued. “There are just-- no left turns. At all. Ever.” 

“I’m… familiar,” Michael agreed, bewildered. She kept drawing.

“I’m telling you, I know exactly what it looks like,” Helen insisted firmly after another beat. “It-- I mean, it wasn’t exactly a spiral, is what I’m saying, because you could always go forward. But the halls never got _shorter,_ like you were coming to a center, there-- there _is_ no center.”

“Well--” Michael started to interject awkwardly. 

“--They just kept going. Like this,” Helen pressed. She drew another agitated stroke, and then she held the paper up, looking at it with a look of frustrated chagrin. 

“Oh, this just doesn’t make any sense…” Helen said disappointedly. Still, she offered it to Michael, and he accepted it from her, taking a moment to examine it carefully. 

Indeed, what she had drawn was a sprawling mass of sharp, disjointed angles, impossible to parse and dizzyingly absurd to try to untangle. And yet… 

“I’m sorry, this is nonsense,” Helen started to say, self-conscious. 

“Wait,” Michael said, “wait. No, I understand this.” 

“...You understand,” Helen repeated in surprise, brightening. 

“It did look like this,” Michael said, staring at the map she had drawn with impossible recognition. “This is… astonishingly accurate. You’re right.” 

“You get it!” Helen exclaimed, beginning to look excited. “Now, after a few turns it just looks like a mess of incomprehensible lines--” 

“--But when you’re _inside_ it--” Michael added. 

_“--Then_ it makes sense!” Helen finished. 

“Yes!!” Michael agreed. “It does!! It was just like this!!” 

“You understand!!” Helen repeated, clearly delighted. “You believe me, you-- you understand.” 

“Obviously, I believe you,” Michael said with a small laugh. “I was there.” 

“I- I know,” she said quickly, her expression crumpling for a moment. “It’s just… well. I’m not used to people taking me seriously when I talk about it.” 

“Oh,” Michael echoed quietly, understanding beginning to dawn on him. “Oh, I… suppose not.” 

“I mean, after a while I just gave up even trying, but… I dunno.” Helen paused, her expression troubled. “For a while, I’d really thought that the knowledge of what I’d seen that day lived and died with me. No one else was ever going to believe me, and that was the end of it. You know?” She looked away then, anxious. “Or-- I guess you don’t know, do you? I’m the one who got to go back, after all. I don’t know what I’m complaining about. And yet.” 

“Helen…” Michael said. 

“I don’t know, I’m sorry,” Helen said quickly, blinking furiously. “It’s just-- there’s so much I’ve never, never _understood_ about-- _any_ of it, I- I don’t know… it’s just… you know, back at the time, there’s just one thing I never really…” She broke off suddenly, hesitating, and then said, “Michael, can I ask you a question?” 

“Anything,” Michael said sincerely. 

“Why did you… do that? Why did you do what you did, at the end?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Why did you leave me behind?” Helen forced herself to ask. 

It was an awful question to ask, selfish and unfair, and she _knew_ it, and she hated herself for having to ask it, but… this was a question she’d carried quietly for a long time, always just under the surface. This was something she _had_ to know: why he had not come back with her. 

He paused for a moment, seeming stunned, so Helen continued, “it’s just, I don’t understand, I- I’ve _never_ understood that. I know it’s-- I mean, I’m sure it’s not like you did it on purpose, o- or probably had much of a choice, I’d have to imagine--” she fumbled, until Michael reached over and, very gently, took her hand in his. 

“I am so sorry,” he said, “for everything. I promised you we would get out of that place together, and then-- I left you to make your own way home alone, back in the real world. I can only imagine how difficult it’s been, having to hold onto everything this whole time all by yourself.” Michael paused for a moment, his expression troubled but careful. “I’m sorry you had to go alone, and I’m sorry I had to stay behind-- but it’s not your fault, okay? None of this is.” 

Helen struggled to find the words to voice her protests, her throat feeling tight and constricted, and she just squeezed her brother’s hand for a moment as she took in a deep breath. “I don’t know how you can say that,” she admitted finally. 

Because-- she’d had so many years to replay the events of that day over and over in her head, sleepless night after sleepless night of hyper-analyzing her every course of action to find the fault in her choices that day. If only she hadn’t opened that door. If only she hadn’t been too scared to be of any use. If only she hadn’t messed up and gotten herself separated from her brother. She had reason after reason to lay the fault at her own feet. She was drowning in reasons to believe it, even-- the only thing she’d never, never been able to understand was why it was that her brother had to pay for what seemed by all means to be her own mistakes. 

It was so unfair that she’d burned up inside trying to hold it all in for so long. She didn’t know why he’d left her, then, no. She didn’t know why, after everything they went through together, they could not be allowed to have even the fragile victory of getting out of that place together-- but what she’d never been able to accept was why it was that _she_ got to go back alive and unharmed while her brother stayed behind in those terrible twisting halls, when it was she who made the first mistake and she who deserved it more. 

Her eyes stung. 

“Helen,” Michael said, his voice sympathetic but firm. “My… entanglement with that place-- my fate was sealed before I ever knew you at all. I was always going to end up lost and trapped in that place, no matter what. I was already doomed from the start.” 

Out of all the things she could have expected him to say, that… had not been one of them. 

“...What do you…” Helen started slowly. 

“What I mean is that my history with The Spiral was such that I… really ought to have known,” said Michael a little sadly. “Whether your involvement was a tragedy of happenstance or whether you, too, were always going to end up drawn into it in the end-- that’s something I truly have no way of knowing. But-- I need you to know that there was absolutely _nothing_ you could have done differently, in that moment, to change what became of me. Please believe me about that much, at the very least-- I didn’t end up trapped there because of you, or anything you did, or didn’t do, or could have done. What I’m trying to say is… it’s not your fault, alright? I _promise_ it’s not. Please, just… believe me.” 

She didn’t even know what to _say_ to that. 

Here it was, everything she’d hardly dared to wish for in eight years-- here was her brother, alive and back by her side; here was proof that she hadn’t imagined a single moment of it all, that she had never been crazy and everything she’d gone through was absolutely real. Here was her payoff for so stubbornly holding onto all of the sharp, dizzying memories, for refusing to forget a single moment, no matter how hard or how painful the weight of it was to carry. 

Here he was, and here was the reassurance she’d thought she was never going to get. She didn’t even _begin_ to know how to process that. 

“Alright,” she said finally, her voice quiet. “I believe you,” she said, because she didn’t know what else she could possibly say, but the small smile he offered her was genuine and sympathetic and she couldn’t help but return it. 

“Good,” Michael said, and then added, “a… are you alright?” 

“Are _you_ alright?” Helen deflected. 

“Am I?” He repeated, as if amused and taken aback by the question. “Well… I’m here, aren’t I? I suppose I’ll have to count myself very, very lucky for that much, at least.” He shook his head a little. “Don’t think I failed to notice that you didn’t answer me, though. Are you okay? Do you need a moment, or anything?”

Helen was quiet for a moment before she finally said, “would you mind terribly if I made us some tea?” and Michael just smiled.

* * *

They puttered about Helen’s kitchen for a while, and Michael looked around, trying to conjure up the memory of what this space had looked like last he’d been in it, trying to remember the meandering story Helen had told him once as she was showing him around for the first time so long ago. 

She was quiet, mostly, other than asking him what kind of tea he wanted and how he took it (he had no preference; whatever she was having was fine by him). It had started to rain in the time since he’d first arrived. He watched as she stood by the kitchen window, closing her eyes for a moment to listen to the steady patter of the rain. 

Waiting for the water to boil gave her the time to take some deep breaths, at the very least. She seemed more at ease by the time they finished their tea, though, and Michael was glad for that. 

(Now that he thought of it, though, Michael wasn’t actually sure if anyone had ever made him tea before. It was a simple gesture, perhaps, but one he carefully committed to memory all the same.)

“Right,” Helen murmured as they returned to her room, taking her seat. “So… I guess we ought to get back to questions, then. You ready?” 

“Sure,” said Michael. After a moment he added, “how long has it been, since…?” 

Helen frowned. “Er… Eight years, I already told you. Right? Or-- what are you talking about?” 

“Oh-- no. I meant, er, since I got here today. Sorry,” he amended. 

“You could just ask what time it is, like a normal person, but okay,” Helen said. 

“I _did_ ask you what time it is like a normal person,” Michael protested. 

“No, no, no. You said, with no other context at all, ‘how long has it been since…’ and then trailed off ominously. You’ll have to forgive me if I assumed you were just being cryptic yet again.” 

“Details,” Michael said playfully. 

_“Details,”_ Helen repeated in a teasing version of his voice. 

Michael shook his head in mock-defeat and said, “I’m being bullied by my own sister.”

“Well, I _am_ your sister. I have to tease you sometimes, it’s part of my job.” Helen checked her phone. “It’s nearly half past four, by the way.”

“Already?” Michael hummed in response, frowning. “Well, then… I guess we’d best make use of what time we have left.” 

“Right,” said Helen. “So, then, I do have something else to ask you, or… several things, really, if I may…” 

“I think, the more answers I give you, the more questions you will have,” Michael noted. 

“Well,” said Helen, “I suppose we never believed any of this would be easy.” 

“No,” Michael agreed, shaking his head. “Ask, though. I will answer.” 

Helen hummed, trying to sort through everything she still needed to know in her mind. “After we, er… A- At the end. When we… parted ways. After I left, what happened to you?” 

“What a question,” Michael said, pausing to consider. “Right in that moment or in general?” 

“...Both?” Helen said. “Anything you know-- I want to know it, too, if I can.” 

Michael sighed, wracking his memory for anything solid to offer her. “I suppose…” he started, “in the immediate aftermath… I think I just sort of stayed there for quite some time, lost in thought, but eventually I had to do something, and… as you know, there is really only one thing you _can_ do at all in that place.” 

“Walk around aimlessly and get hopelessly, miserably lost?” Helen said dryly. 

“Well-- yes, exactly that,” Michael agreed, a little uneasy. 

“Oh,” Helen said faintly, frowning. “You mean, just… for all this time, that was-- that was just it, for you? You were just… lost and wandering for eight years?” 

“I don’t… m- my… ability to recall exactly what else _happened_ during my time in that place…” Michael shook his head. “Right up at the beginning, it’s all relatively clear. After a while, though, it gets-- hazy. As far as I can tell, though, yes-- most of what can I remember is just… brief flashes of walking aimlessly, indefinitely. The longer I was there, the worse it got, the more I started to… lose hold on concepts like _time_ or _reality._ Or, well, _self.”_

“...That sounds awful,” Helen said carefully. 

“It… wasn’t great,” Michael agreed. “I suppose eventually I was meant to just… give up. Go mad. Unravel. Somehow, that never quite happened,” he said, his expression becoming unfocused for a moment. “But you know what?” He said after a moment, “I think I’ve got you to thank for that, in more ways than one.” 

Helen looked stunned and said, “well, I’m-- glad, but what do you mean?” 

“Well, for one…” Michael said, “you never forgot me, did you? You never, never let go.”

“No,” Helen agreed, something sentimental in her expression. “It… wasn’t always easy. But no, I didn’t. I guess I thought I owed you that much, at least.” 

An odd smile tugged at the corners of Michael’s mouth. “I thought so,” he said, and then, “thank you. For that. Both for the gesture, and… while I can’t exactly prove it, I can’t help but feel like that must have played some role in my ability to return, that there still existed some piece of reality that believed I had ever existed at all.” 

“You think so?” Helen said quietly. 

Michael nodded. “It’s just my… theory, as it were, but I don’t feel that it would have been possible for me to return to a world that fully rejected my belonging to it. None of that would have mattered, of course, if I’d completely lost my grip on my sense of self and all, but…” he started to smile a wry little smile. “I believe I have you to thank for that, too.” 

Before Helen could gather the words together to ask him what he meant, Michael reached into his pocket. “Do you remember this?” he said. 

What he handed her was… a pen. 

It was an odd sort, filled with a swirling, multicolored ink. Helen turned it over in her hands, examining it. 

“Oh my god, I _do_ remember this,” she said at last, a grin spreading across her face. She’d long lost or used up all the others from its set, but back on the day they met, before any of the horror that was to come, she had given this one to him. 

“A keepsake from the real world,” Michael explained. “Something to remember reality by. Beyond that, it was a reminder of what I couldn’t allow myself to forget.” He smiled a little bit. “It’s funny. I knew this was important-- even before I remembered _why_ it was important. I suppose now I understand. So, thank you again.” 

“That’s… Wow,” Helen said. “Wow, I’m… I’m glad it seemed to have helped.” 

“It did,” Michael agreed, sentimental. 

It was, perhaps, a strange object to pin so much meaning to, and yet. This was the memory that mattered most to him-- that single moment of peace in the calm before the Spiral, the only time he had truly gotten to spend with his sister, unbothered and unaware of the fate that loomed before them… 

He understood now. Shaken as he was with his head full of lies, the echoes of that moment were ingrained into his artificially constructed past. 

“Those pictures we drew that day,” Michael said, starting to smile. “They were awful, you know. You kept telling me they were fine, but they were absolute rubbish. I told you. I wasn’t any good at art-- never had been. Not before, at least.” 

“You can say that all you like, but I disagree,” Helen said, smiling back at him. 

“But you know what?” He said, “Even when I didn’t _remember,_ I don’t think I ever forgot that, deep down. One of the… _many…_ false details that The Spiral seemingly provided me with when it returned me to reality--” Michael broke off, laughing. 

“What are you getting at?” Helen said a little chidingly, smiling along with him. 

“It’s just-- it’s fitting. It’s very fitting, that I got to keep that,” Michael said, shaking his head a little. “I focused on that moment so much that the _idea_ of drawing, if only at your insistence, became so ingrained in my concept of _me_ by the end that I…” he laughed again. “It’s just funny. I still draw. In a way, you did that.” 

A small grin began to spread across Helen’s face. “...And you weren’t even going to let me give that damn thing to you, at first,” she said with a laugh. “You were all like, ‘oh no, I couldn’t _possibly_ take it away from you!’” 

“And I still won’t!” Michael said almost defensively. “See? I’m giving it back to you, aren’t I?? I- I’ve only even lost it like five or six times!” 

_“Only_ five or six times??” Helen teased. 

“Yes!” Michael insisted, embarrassed. “Th- The point is, here I am again, and here’s your pen back.” 

_“Oh,_ no, no,” Helen shook her head, _“absolutely_ not. You’re keeping this. You really think there’s any way I’d want to take this away after you just explained all that? Excuse me, I don’t think so. Come on. Use your brain.” 

“Oh, whatever,” Michael groused, but he reluctantly accepted it back from her nonetheless. 

“Speaking of which, though…” said Helen, “there _is_ actually something I’ve got for you, to tell you the truth. Two things, sort of-- just give me a moment…” she said, standing up and looking about. 

“Oh?” Said Michael, seeming confused. Helen, however, offered no further elaboration.

When she returned, she draped something soft and fabric around Michael’s shoulders. 

“What is…?” he started in the moment before recognition slotted into place. It was his scarf, just as faded as he remembered it-- worn, but apparently well cared for, if the old thing hadn’t fallen apart after all this time. 

“This is the first,” said Helen. “Right before we were separated, you wrapped this around me without a word. Remember that?” 

“I do,” Michael agreed, pleased. “At the time, I… I think I was just worried you might get cold, wh- when you got back to the real world, I mean… being that I wasn’t going, I… suppose I just thought you would need it more than I would.” 

“Considerate of you,” Helen remarked, her expression half amused and half sentimental. “Well, I’ve been holding onto this for you for… a _long_ time, but-- I’ve kept it in one piece for you, so that must count for something.” 

Michael opened his mouth to protest, likely to make some teasing complaint about the fact that she wouldn’t accept the pen and yet now wanted him to take the scarf, but this was different to Helen, and she just said, “please. I didn’t know if I’d ever get the chance to return it to you, but now… here you are.” 

All this time, she’d held onto it to remember him by. It had been one of the few comforts she’d gotten to keep from that day-- solid proof that, despite whatever anyone else may believe, everything she had gone through had been real. But she didn’t _need_ it to remember him by anymore, because he was _here._ She silently willed him to understand. 

He considered this for a moment, and then at last he nodded slowly. “Thank you,” he said carefully, and she offered her gratitude in the form of a small little smile. 

Then she said, “I have another thing to show you, too. Funny that you mentioned those drawings we did that day. I still have those.” 

“You do??” Michael said in surprise, grinning. 

“Of course,” Helen said eagerly, turning back to her desk. “Or rather-- I say _drawings,_ but, well-- all but one of them just sort of disappeared by the time I woke up that next morning? I don’t-- they were there, and then-- nothing. It was the strangest thing-- they all vanished without a trace, just completely gone. I know, I… I looked for them.” 

She turned back to him, and now she was holding a sheet of paper that was slightly yellowed with age. “Not this one, though,” Helen said. “This one stayed. Take a look.” 

It was a somewhat crudely drawn and colored picture of two people standing next to a house. Michael remembered it well, now that he had it in his hands. This was the one Helen had always been most fond of-- she’d even been proud enough of it that she’d insisted they both sign it when they were done with it. Indeed, his signature still stood next to hers despite his displacement from reality, which, perhaps, had something to do with its stubborn refusal to simply disappear as the rest had. 

It was strange. It reminded Michael of something. He wasn’t quite sure what, as he studied the details of the picture closely for a moment, and then it occurred to him. 

“Are they still… like that?” He asked. 

Helen frowned. “What?” 

“My eyes,” Michael said. “At the time… when we drew this… you asked me what color my eyes were. Remember?” 

Realization crept onto her face like a dawning horror. “I remember,” she said. “Of course I remember.” 

“Are they still that color?” Michael asked, an odd edge of anxiety in his tone despite his attempts to hide it. 

“That’s an unusual question to ask,” Helen pointed out warily. 

“Humor me,” he said, leaning forward slightly, “please. Tell me, are they still the same?” 

It felt almost like déjà vu. Here was her brother asking this same question once again with something very nearly approaching fear in his voice, looking at her as if her answer mattered to him. She didn’t see any other option but to oblige. 

So she looked at his eyes. Or, she tried to. 

If anything, the effect they’d had before was even worse now. For the briefest of moments she could not register anything off about them, other than that his gaze defied her scrutiny with an insidious sort of deflection that only became obvious when she was trying her hardest to focus on it-- which she did, dutifully, at his request. She forced her mind to focus. 

And then that sick sense of unreality set in, and her retinas burned, and her temples throbbed, and her mind ached as it took in whatever nauseating, nonexistent _wrongness_ it found lurking behind his gaze. She couldn’t stop herself from feeling faintly, dizzyingly certain that if she looked too deeply it would swallow her whole. 

This time it was Helen who looked away first. Michael wrung his hands nervously, waiting for her reply. 

“Still gray,” she lied. “Nothing different. I don’t know why you ask.” 

Michael visibly relaxed, once more seeming pleased by her answer. 

“Good,” he said finally, “good.” Then he paused for a moment, seeming contemplative. “Well, I… it’s starting to get a little late, I might need to worry about getting back home soon. I’m fairly certain I have a few things I need to work on for class when I get back, and I’m sure you’ve got other things to do as well…” 

“Of course,” Helen mumbled blankly. She hesitated for another moment before she said, “I have… just one more question, if I may.” 

“Sure, anything,” Michael promised simply, which she hoped she was not about to make him regret. 

It was only fair. Intentional or no, he was giving her a reason to be afraid, and now she needed answers. 

“Michael,” she said, “what are you, really?” 

“What am I?” He repeated, eyes wide with alarm, and then he laughed a little nervously. 

What Michael said finally, like he was weighing his answer on his tongue as he spoke, or perhaps like he was willing himself to believe it, was “human, I hope.” 

It was… a worrying thing to say. 

It was worrying that such a thing had to be asked of him at all, yes, and more worrying still that he seemingly could not bring himself to be certain, that despite whatever he may have believed, there still existed a conscious awareness that things were not simple for him anymore and that neither of them had a way of proving anything. 

Still, her brother had never lied to her, and she had already decided that she trusted him a long, long time ago. She asked him a question and he’d given her an answer. That would have to be enough for her. 

Helen nodded. “Alright,” she said slowly, internally assessing all of the many things she still did not understand, about him, or about that day, or that place, or any of it. 

As if responding to her unvoiced concern, Michael said, “we’ll, uh… We can talk more about all of this soon, okay?” 

“Okay,” Helen agreed, offering him a small smile. “And, I assume… we’ll also be talking more in general. About normal things, too.” 

“Of course,” Michael said warmly. “Yeah, definitely. I’d-- I’d like that.” 

And then he paused, glancing away as his face went blank, and then vaguely horrified. 

“Oh, no.” 

“...What’s wrong,” Helen said after a moment. 

Michael turned back to her, his expression caught between mortified amusement and genuine distress. “Er, th- the… artificial details of my apparent past that The Spiral seemingly… provided me with, um, upon my escape from it…” he fumbled. “I- In remembering the, uh, actual _truths_ of the matter… what I mean is, how should I say this…” 

“Go on,” Helen prompted him. 

“I… don’t…” Michael paused. “I can’t seem to remember my fake backstory anymore.” 

Helen stared at him for a moment, trying very hard to stifle a laugh. 

“Oh my god, where do I live,” Michael said, mortified. 

“You _forgot your fake backstory??”_ Helen repeated with wide eyes, starting to giggle. “You’re joking!”

“I- I’m not!!” Michael said protestingly, jumping to his feet. “I don’t-- I can’t-- d- did I mention it to you, before?” 

“Nope,” Helen said helpfully. 

“Then, w- wait-- how did I get here??” Michael said, making a wild, vague gesture with his hands. “D- Do you remember that at all, did you see how exactly it was that I arrived?” 

“I don’t have a clue,” Helen said cheerfully. “You’re on your own there. _Forgot your fake backstory,_ could this day possibly get any more bizarre…” 

“Oh my god, Helen, this is serious!” Michael whined. 

“I’m being serious!” Helen assured him ineffectively, earning a comical look of skeptical admonishment from her brother. 

“Ummmm, do you-- maybe have your address saved on your phone, or something?” Helen offered after a beat. 

“I don’t think so??” Michael said nervously, though he fished his phone out of his pocket nonetheless. 

“Then I’ve got nothing,” Helen shrugged. 

“Maybe I have… something… t- to remember by…” Michael murmured furiously, fumbling with the device and trying to find anything he could use. 

“I mean… do you know anyone _else_ who might know?” Helen suggested, not thinking much of it, but Michael suddenly brightened. 

“Jon!” Michael exclaimed in a slightly panicky voice. “I’ll call Jon, h- he’s my friend, maybe he’ll know something. I trust him,” Michael said confidently. 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Helen said teasingly. 

“You hush,” Michael said, apparently already having made up his mind. 

He held his phone up to his ear, and then on second thought he lowered it back down and put it on speaker, though he also made a manic shushing gesture in Helen’s direction that she assumed meant _not a word._

It rang for several agonizingly long seconds, and Michael looked like he was about ready to royally freak out by the time it finally picked up. 

“Hello?” Came a somewhat disgruntled-sounding voice. 

“Hi, Jon!” Michael said brightly, audibly relieved. 

“Michael?” There was a vague _thump_ followed by a sound like dishes clinking together on the other end of the call. “What, uh… What’s going on?” 

“Listen, I- I need help,” Michael said hurriedly. “So, do you remember, uh, e- earlier today… er, well, I suppose I ought to be more specific than that-- in the cafeteria, um--” 

“Yes, I remember,” Jon cut him off, “and I believe you also said that you would explain to me what on _earth_ was going on with you today.”

“A- And I will,” Michael promised again. “I… need… okay. I’m going to ask you a very strange question, okay? I promise I’ll explain why later-- but-- I’m serious. I need your help.” 

“Alright…,” Jon said warily, “ask.” 

“Do you know… _anything_ about where I live, at all?” 

There was a moment of surprised silence. 

“Are you _quizzing_ me??” Jon asked finally. 

“What? No!” Michael said quickly. 

“Is this some sort of joke?? First you’re acting-- _very_ odd at school all day, and you keep cryptically promising to explain some nebulous _everything,_ and now you, what-- you want to know if I have your address committed to memory??” 

“Yes,” Michael confirmed. 

There was no response for a beat, during which Michael looked, if at all possible, even more like he was ready to crawl into a hole and scream incoherently for eternity. Then Jon sighed and said, “well, I don’t know _exactly_ where it is your house is, and if you don’t have your own address memorized by this point, then you really ought to at least write it down somewhere instead of… calling up your classmates out of the blue, whilst they are _trying_ to get started on dinner, mind you.” 

“I know, I’m sorry,” Michael said timidly, sounding disappointed. 

_“But,”_ Jon added quickly, “I seem to recall you saying something about living in the hilltop area-- you specifically named Agnes as being one of your foster siblings at the time? And… that’s as much as I know.” 

“Agnes!!!” Michael exclaimed. “Of course!! How could I-- never mind. Agnes. Right. Um-- thank you.” 

There was a brief, awkward pause. “Michael,” Jon started apprehensively, “are you… alright?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Are you… I don’t know. Safe, I guess? Did-- Did something happen to you? Are you… lost, somewhere, do you need someone to come and get you--?” 

“Oh!” Michael said. “Oh, no, no it’s not-- I’m fine, n- nothing happened to me. Or rather-- well I’m, yes, I’m perfectly safe. Haven’t been kidnapped or anything,” he said a little jokingly, but Jon just hummed worriedly on the other end of the phone and Michael realized that was actually not as reassuring as he thought it was. 

“If you’re sure…” Jon said hesitantly. 

“I’m fine, I promise,” Michael reassured him. “Anyway, thank you so much, I’m sorry to bother you, I didn’t mean to--” 

“It’s fine, don’t apologize,” Jon said a little brusquely, his tone still betraying some measure of concern. 

“I _will_ explain what’s going on, I promise,” Michael said nervously. 

“Yes, you will,” Jon agreed a bit firmly. Then he said, “you take care, then. I’ll see you.” 

“Right. See you tomorrow,” Michael said, and shortly hung up, exhaling a deep breath. 

“...That was weird,” Helen finally spoke up. 

“Yeah,” Michael agreed, looking somehow drained and relieved at once. 

“So… that Jon of yours. He seems like a prickly one.” 

“Yeah,” Michael agreed again, sighing. “He’s… certainly something. He’s sweet when you get to know him, though.” 

Helen hummed neutrally, nodding. It had absolutely _not_ escaped her notice that this _Jon_ guy was the immediate first person her brother thought to turn to when he was in distress. 

She started to smile. 

“So… you trust him, huh?” She echoed back at him. 

“Sure,” Michael agreed tentatively, suddenly acutely self-conscious of the fact that he was about to play into some sort of verbal trap. “Why?” 

“Oh, no reason,” Helen said. “He’s _sweet when you get to know him,_ huh… So are you and this ‘Jon’ close, then?” She asked innocently. 

“I… mean… I’d certainly like to say so,” Michael said. 

“Would you say… _very_ close?” Helen continued, her grin widening. “How close are we talking?” 

For a moment Michael just looked back at her in confusion, and then his eyes widened. “I have absolutely no idea what you could possibly be getting at,” he stated, but his face was turning red. 

“I’m pretty sure you actually do,” Helen said cheerfully. 

“I’m pretty sure I definitely don’t,” Michael said vehemently. 

“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe my baby brother has a _crush,”_ Helen declared. 

“I don’t-- he doesn’t, you can’t just-- no, it’s, th- that’s-- not-- it’s not like that, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Michael stammered, standing up so fast he nearly tripped. 

“Why are you so defensive then, hm? Hmmmm??” Helen ribbed him. “Sounds like somebody’s in denial!” 

“I’m not in denial!!” Michael protested. 

“Jon and Michael, sitting in a tree!” Helen said gleefully. 

“Stop, stop, stooooooooop,” Michael exclaimed, covering his ears and frantically pushing his way past her and out of her room, skipping down the stairs two at a time in an effort to escape her. 

This did not work, considering the fact that he was in _her_ house and there was nowhere he could go that she couldn’t easily chase him down and tease him relentlessly. 

(Eventually-- not fast enough, in Michael’s opinion-- she grew tired of it, but she _was_ his sister and of course she had absolutely no choice but to embarrass him. That was what siblings were for, after all.) 

* * *

“Okay,” Michael said, “no, really, why can’t I find Agnes in my contacts, I’m _sure_ she should be in here.” 

“Who is Agnes, exactly?” Helen asked. 

Michael squinted furiously at his phone screen. “She’s my foster sister,” he said. “Or, I suppose, so I’m led to believe. Friend of mine.”

Helen hummed, considering. “Agnes Montague? She’s like, kind of tall, got long red hair, right?” 

“Yep, that’s her.” 

Helen frowned. “I could have sworn she lived at that one house that’s supposedly super haunted…?” 

“It’s not _actually_ haunted,” Michael said. 

“Oh, well, that’s… good.” 

“Technically,” Michael added. 

“...What do you mean, _technically?”_

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael said dismissively, still frowning at his phone. “I really don’t know how this can _possibly_ be so complicated.” 

“Er… no luck?” Helen ventured. 

“No-- I _know_ I have her number saved, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be right here. I don’t know why I can’t-- oh,” he said. “It’s because I set her name in my phone to be like, twenty seven fire emojis, actually. Why did I do that??” Michael shook his head. 

“Some sort of inside joke, probably?” Helen suggested. 

“I don’t remember,” Michael mumbled. “Well, I’m going to text her and ask her to pick me up.” 

“Right, cool,” Helen mumbled, watching him apprehensively as he typed away for a moment. “So…” she started eventually, “well, this… place where you apparently live, now…” 

“What about it?” Michael said absently. 

“Is it, um…” She made a vague gesture with her hands. “I don’t know-- how is it, living there, I guess?” 

“Oh, it’s fine,” Michael said. She heard a cheerful beep come from his phone. “Why?” 

“Uh… just curious?” Helen said uneasily. “What’s it like?” 

“Well, it’s me, Agnes, and a handful of other kids living there,” Michael said, “though I don’t much care for any of the others, and certainly not for Mr. Fielding, the man who looks after us.” 

“Oh, no, why not? Is he mean?” 

“No, not at all. He’s very… civil, I suppose,” said Michael, pausing to reply to a text. “He _is_ also evil, though, so there’s that.” 

“I… oh,” Helen said, not sure how to respond to that. 

“Yeah, like, he’s definitely planning to kill us all individually when we reach adulthood, which isn’t ideal, but other than he’s reasonably nice,” Michael said distractedly. 

“What!?” Helen exclaimed. 

“It’s fine, Agnes has a plan. Don’t worry about it,” Michael said casually, which was apparently, as far as he was concerned, the end of that conversation. This was much too weird for Helen to be dealing with right now and, after a couple more failed attempts to get him to elaborate, she decided it was best just to drop it. 

They continued to sit and chat tentatively about this and that for a while, trying to stay away from any more particularly big topics. Despite the slight fumbling awkwardness of it, it was still nice just to sit together and talk about mundane little things, unimportant things, anecdotes about school and such. Neutral topics, really-- normal things, or, well, as close to approaching normal as they were able to get. 

All too soon, though, Michael’s ride arrived, and Helen suddenly found herself extremely reluctant to let go of him. 

He slung his backpack over his shoulder, and she said, “wait. Hold on a minute.” 

“What’s up?” Michael said, and in response, Helen threw her arms around him and hugged him. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” she told him, trying not to let herself get choked up. “I’m glad we got to talk.”

“As am I,” Michael agreed with a small laugh, hugging her back. “I’m glad I got to see you.” 

“We’ll talk more about all this soon,” Helen said firmly as she released him. 

“Of course,” Michael said. “We still have a lot to discuss. And I’ll see you tomorrow at school, right? I’m not going far for long.” 

“Yeah, I… suppose not,” Helen said, unable to find the words to articulate why even that small distance felt so unthinkable to her. 

“I’ll text you when I get home, okay? You have my number,” Michael said reassuringly. Helen felt her eyes start to sting as he opened the door. 

“Don’t you dare vanish on me again, you hear?” Helen said, her tone joking but her expression somber. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Michael said softly, “I promise.” 

“Okay,” Helen breathed, “I… I’ll hold you to that.” 

“Of course,” Michael said gently. 

“I love you, okay?” Helen said. “Just stay safe.” 

Michael smiled warmly and said, “you, too.” 

In another moment he was gone, and something quiet and sentimental in Helen made her stay and watch out the window long after the car drove away. 

He would be fine, she told herself. He promised her that he would be fine, and so she had to believe him.

(Somehow, she couldn’t quite manage to fully reassure herself.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me a long time to write, because these two just had. a _lot_ they needed to say to each other. None of this was made any shorter by Michael’s inability to not be ominous and cryptic about things all the time constantly, but hey. 
> 
> (I also had a lot of fun in finally getting to make use of my "one-sided Michael/Jon" tag, lol. Sometimes you have to pause your conversation about evil eldritch hell dimensions to tease your sibling about his Obvious Crush™)
> 
> I am aiming to have the next chapter out somewhere around the 25th of October, so until next time! ^^


	25. Chapter 25

Jon wasn’t entirely sure how it was that he ended up talking to Helen in the first place. Or rather, he knew the series of events that, somehow, led to this occurring, though he wasn’t exactly sure why Helen decided to sit with him at lunch regardless. 

Sasha was working on homework for one of her college courses, and Tim was off with his brother Danny. Martin was in the nurse’s office with a headache, having a lie down. He reportedly did not quite have an actual fever, but he was still feeling rather pitiful as it was, which made Jon worried. Unfortunately, Martin didn’t exactly have anyone to pick him up and take him home, and so he was resigned to staying at school (unless he wanted to ask Elias to drive him home, which he didn’t). Michael was… well, Jon really didn’t know where he was off to, and if Helen knew, then she wasn’t exactly volunteering it as she sat across from him, pushing her food around her tray absentmindedly. 

Indeed, Michael had been acting… strange, as of late. 

As far as Jon could tell, Michael was perfectly fine one day-- he seemed to take in the knowledge that there had very recently been an evil worm queen lurking beneath the school in relative stride, and he had seemed perfectly content at the birthday party last weekend. And then, this _Helen_ came into the equation with whatever variable it was that she brought to the table, and suddenly Jon couldn’t help but feel that he did not understand him anymore. 

Ever since Michael had, apparently, reunited with his seemingly long-lost sibling, he hadn’t quite been acting like himself. He had promised Jon an explanation. He still hadn’t given him one yet. 

That, and despite the fact that it seemed almost as if Helen had simply appeared without warning that day, the more Jon thought about it, the more he felt like he _did_ recognize her from somewhere. Had he taken a class with her before? No, he was sure he would remember her better if he had-- but he was drawing a blank as to how else to explain the vague familiarity. Nevertheless, with all of the links in their friend group that held them together absent, Jon was having a hard time figuring out why exactly Helen chose to sit with him. 

“What’s the matter?” Helen suddenly asked, and Jon blinked, realizing he had been staring. 

“What are you doing here?” Jon blurted out, immediately wishing he would just keep it to himself. 

Helen did not seem especially bothered, casually taking a sip of her juice. “Oh, I don’t know. I sort of thought you might not want to sit all by yourself-- I know I wouldn’t.” 

“Um… right,” Jon said uncertainly, not knowing how to articulate the fact that her reply explained nothing, and also the fact that he was certainly no stranger to sitting alone. 

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be so quiet,” Helen added after a moment. “Just thinking about some things, that’s all. I’m not trying to be rude or anything.” 

“N- No, it’s fine, you’re just fine,” Jon assured her, feeling, if anything, even more perplexed. Well, now he felt obligated to make conversation with her, and he fidgeted as he scrambled for something appropriate to say. “Er, how is your… how is Michael, do you know? He hasn’t-- I’ve not gotten much of a chance to speak to him, lately.” 

“Oh,” Helen paused, “he’s… alright. Mostly. I think he might be a little overwhelmed, to tell you the truth. But-- well, he’s mostly fine.” 

“Uh, that’s… good,” Jon said tentatively, looking back down at his tray awkwardly. 

Another moment passed before Helen finally said, “so, Jon, I do have a question for you, if I may.” 

“Sure,” Jon said uncertainly. 

“You don’t happen to know Georgie, do you, by any chance? Georgie Barker?” 

_Ah._ So that was how he recognized Helen. 

“I do,” Jon admitted, “I-- I did.” 

Helen gave him an appraising look. “So… you wouldn’t happen to be the same Jon who she always goes on about, you know, the bastard ex who used to be her best friend?” 

Jon winced. “No, you’ve got it right. That’s me.” 

“Hm,” Helen said in a decidedly neutral voice, and Jon wanted to wither away into nothing with embarrassment. 

He recognized now that he had often, in passing, seen Helen tagging along with Georgie and Melanie, and so he had to assume they must have been friends. This explained both why Helen was vaguely familiar to him and why he had done his _absolute_ best to steer clear of her in the past, whether he’d consciously realized it or not. 

Being that Helen was Georgie’s friend first and foremost, and that Jon had no idea what exactly Georgie may have been saying about him given that they hadn’t been on speaking terms for the better part of a year, Jon found himself expecting a disapproving comment or, perhaps worse, for her to simply excuse herself and leave, no longer wanting anything to do with him. 

What he was _not_ expecting was for Helen to simply say, “so you’re _that_ Jon, huh? Somehow, I expected you to be… I dunno, taller.” 

_“What?”_ Jon said, disgruntled. 

“Oh, nothing,” Helen said in an apparently congenial tone, which left Jon having absolutely no idea what to think. Then her phone chimed and she reached for it, turning her focus elsewhere and leaving Jon to stew in his apprehension and dredged-up memories. 

Georgie had asked Jon out sometime early in their sophomore year. The thing was, Jon had not realized at the time that he was being asked out whatsoever. 

In _retrospect,_ of course, he can see now that Georgie bashfully asking him if he wanted to go see a movie out of the blue wasn’t exactly the most unclear of signs. The fact that none of their other friends were going along should have probably clued him in, but it didn’t, and he had, rather obliviously, thought it to be no different from any of the other dozens of times she’d asked him to hang out before. 

He hadn’t actually realized that it had been a date in her eyes until they’d been about to part ways for the day. Georgie had asked him if he’d had a good time, and he had said yes, he had. He was gearing up to go on a tangent about the film they’d just seen when Georgie leaned over and pecked him on the cheek before very hastily turning to leave, calling a giddy farewell over her shoulder as she did so. 

And _then,_ and only then, as Jon reached up to touch his cheek in disbelief, did he realize that he suddenly had a girlfriend. 

This would not have been a problem as far as miscommunications went if he hadn’t immediately decided to make it complicated. 

Could he have just told her he hadn’t realized she’d been asking him out and wasn’t sure if he felt that way about her? Probably. They would have more than likely just laughed it off with only a temporary degree of awkwardness. Did Jon think of that at the time, or any other simple resolution? Absolutely not. Suddenly he’d found himself incredibly averse to the idea of hurting her feelings, and so instead he decided that the best course of action would be to just… go along with it. He had, somehow, failed to take into account that _going along with it_ was a temporary and volatile solution. 

But he liked Georgie-- she was one of his best friends, and he wanted to make her happy, and as far as he was concerned a date was basically just hanging out with extra steps, which they already did all the time, so-- it was fine. It was fine for a little over two months, in fact. 

And then Jon started to actually develop _feelings,_ and somehow, that managed to make everything _more_ complicated rather than less. 

Suddenly he had no idea where he stood with her anymore. They were already technically _dating,_ but he had somehow managed to convince himself that because of the fact that it’d taken him this long to truly reciprocate then it must have meant he was _lying_ before now, and he managed to work himself up into a panic about the idea of her becoming angry with him over it. He didn’t even understand the line between being good friends and having _feelings_ and how he was even meant to _know_ which side of it he fell on, or what to _do_ with that feeling once he’d identified it-- if he’d identified it at all, and wasn’t just as mistaken as he was before-- unless maybe he’d always had feelings for Georgie and he just hadn’t noticed, or if he’d somehow tricked himself into thinking one was the other or vice versa, or-- 

Well, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. He became so paralyzed by his doubts and his fears, especially of messing up with her and losing her as a friend, that he ended up withdrawing entirely. Which was a mistake, or rather, one more mistake in a long line of mistakes. The end result was the same. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Helen’s voice came eventually, jarring Jon out of his imminent self-blame spiral. 

“How is she?” Jon asked suddenly as he looked up at her. 

“Georgie?” 

“Yes,” Jon said, his expression troubled. “You’re friends with her, aren’t you? Aren’t you close?” 

“Well… sure,” Helen said. “Melanie and Georgie both. They’re my best friends.” 

“Then-- how has she been, lately?” Jon said. “Is she… doing alright? How is The Admiral? Oh, god-- he’s still around, isn’t he? I can’t even imagine what she’d do if--” 

“The Admiral is just fine,” Helen said with an amused look. “Lazy old thing nowadays. I hear he was a bit more… _energetic_ in his younger days.” 

“Oh, yes,” Jon agreed immediately. “Several times, he’s gotten out the front door and gone off on a little adventure-- once he even tore his way through a window screen when it was left open for too long.” 

“Oh, really?” Helen said, laughing a little. “Bit of an escape artist, huh?” 

“Well, he would never _go_ very far. But he liked to sit in the windowsill and watch the birds in that big tree in her yard, and by _liked,_ I mean it filled him with an unfathomable feline rage. There was once I wasn’t watching carefully enough when I went to come inside and he got out-- managed to get himself stuck up in that damn tree, and, well, I- I didn’t want Georgie’s parents to get _mad_ at me… so…” 

“You tried to go after him and you fell, didn’t you,” Helen ventured. 

“Exactly that, yes,” Jon agreed. Helen shook her head in amusement. “I was _fine._ Georgie laughed at me for weeks, though, she--” 

He stopped suddenly, his expression becoming sad. 

After a moment of this, Helen said, “I might have a picture or three of The Admiral on my phone, if you’re interested…” and Jon brightened immediately. 

“Yes, absolutely,” he agreed quickly, a smile returning to his face. He came around to Helen’s side of the table and sat next to her as she showed him picture after picture, and Jon was filled with a mixture of delight and sorrow when she came to a picture of The Admiral perched precariouisly on Georgie’s shoulders-- the frame was blurry with movement, but Georgie’s familiar face was bright with laughter in it all the same, and it made Jon’s stupid heart ache. 

“And… you say Georgie’s doing well?” He asked softly. 

“She’s just fine, Jon,” Helen agreed with an odd gleam in her eyes. 

“Good,” Jon said faintly, blinking a little. He didn’t realize his throat had gotten so tight. “good, I… I’m really glad to hear that.” 

Then after a moment Helen did something that he didn’t expect, which was that she wordlessly held her phone up to her ear. 

“What are you…” Jon started, wondering if he ought to leave so she could have some privacy on the phone, but she just held one finger up. 

“Hello,” she said as her call went through. “Where are you at right now? ...The library? I see, are you busy right at this moment-- not really? Cool, great. So, I’m gonna need you to make friends with your bastard ex again,” she said, and Jon’s eyes widened in horror as he scrambled to his feet. 

“Wh- What are you, no, wait, y- you-- _you can’t just call her!!”_ Jon protested, horrified. 

“You need to talk to each other,” Helen said to her anyway, ignoring him. “Come on, he misses being friends with you just as much as you do with him. It’s obvious, I can tell.” 

As she said this, she apparently made an executive decision about how much she wanted to have to repeat herself back and forth over the phone, which was not at all, and she put the call on speaker. 

“--isn’t he saying so himself then, hm??” Georgie was saying, her voice indignant and stubborn. “Unless he actually has something he wants to say to my face, then I don’t think--” 

“If I have to hear either of you tell one more crazy anecdote about your childhood adventures or whatever and then make that _exact same_ sad mopey face at me, I’m going to lose my mind,” Helen said. “Now listen, we’re in the cafeteria. I’ve got him right here beside me, reassessing all his life choices in a panic like I’m personally digging his grave as we speak.”

There was a stunned pause at that, on Georgie’s end. 

“But if you’re so sure you don’t want to talk to him, then I suppose I can just hang up,” Helen said innocently. 

“I didn’t say that,” Georgie said hastily. 

“That’s what I thought,” Helen said, smug. “Now, oh my, would you look at the time? I’ve suddenly remembered I have to go do a thing,” she said gleefully and pushed the phone into Jon’s unwilling hands. 

“Wait, no, Helen--!” Jon said frantically. 

“You kids have fun, now! Toodles!” Helen slung her backpack over her shoulder and left Jon in the dust, holding _her_ phone, with his ex girlfriend and ex best friend on the line. 

“What the hell,” Jon muttered to no one, mystified. He heard Georgie stifle a giggle as he held the phone up to his ear.

“Hi,” she said, a little uncertainly. 

Jon fidgeted a little. “Um… hi.” 

A fantastic first exchange between two people who hadn’t spoken in a year. 

“Don’t mind Helen,” Georgie said after a moment, amusement clear in her voice. “She’s great, I love her to bits, but when she gets some wacky scheme in her mind…” 

“There’s no stopping her, no matter how bewildering or insane?” Jon suggested, and Georgie laughed. 

“So… uh… how have you been?” Georgie asked him tentatively, and with that they slowly fell back into a pattern of conversation well-rehearsed from years of knowing each other. It was clumsy at first, but… well, she was still the same Georgie as she’d always been, despite everything. He hadn’t quite realized how terribly he’d missed hearing the sound of her voice until now. 

They went on about this and that for a while. They complained about school and grouchy teachers, and then Georgie asked about how Martin, Tim and Sasha were doing, and so Jon rambled about his friends for a while. Which lead him to the story of how it was he came to know Helen, that is, he had recently become friends with her brother, and Georgie said she didn’t know that Helen even _had_ a brother, and Jon informed her that, apparently, that was the same page that just about everyone involved was also on. Then Georgie started telling an only loosely related story about an apparent haunting she’d read about wherein someone was tormented by the ghost of their long lost twin, and then they tailed off into a meandering discussion about ghosts in general for a while, until Georgie brought up a sketchier story that Jon happened to be familiar with and he started viciously dissecting the holes in the supposed evidence. 

He was in the middle of a tangentially related spiel about carbon monoxide poisoning making people see things they thought were supernatural but weren’t when Georgie started to laugh, and he trailed off, suddenly self-conscious. 

“What??” Jon grumbled, gearing up to launch into a passionate defense of the point he was making, whatever it was. 

“Nothing, nothing,” Georgie giggled. “I just, I mean-- it’s funny, you know, how you-- nothing.” She paused for a moment, and then said, “I just… missed you, that's all.” 

“Oh,” Jon breathed. “I… I missed you too. I’m…” He hesitated, a well of regrets all fighting to spill out of his mouth all at once. 

If he’d handled this-- _any_ of this-- better than he had, then this conversation wouldn’t have had to be their first in so long. 

If only he’d just _communicated_ with Georgie from the start, if only he hadn’t gone and made things over-complicated by overthinking himself into the point of inaction, if only he hadn’t just _run away_ from the problems he’d made for himself-- he did this to himself, and the fact that he’d hardly spoken a word to one of his oldest and best friends until today was all his fault. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon said finally, fighting to keep his voice steady. “For everything. I should have-- I should have… th- there’s a _lot_ of things I should have done differently, though I suppose you don’t exactly need me to tell you that, do you?” 

“Jon…” 

“I-- I shouldn’t have avoided you,” Jon said, more firmly this time. “You didn’t deserve that, and I’m sorry.” 

One cannot simply ignore their feelings in hopes that they will go away, and that was something Jon learned very much the hard way. He finally paid the price for that when Georgie had eventually confronted him on the fact that he had been going out of his way to keep his distance from her-- just until he’d sorted himself out, he’d kept promising himself, just until he figured out what it was he actually wanted-- and demanded answers for his behavior. And… Jon just spilled everything. 

He told her bluntly that he hadn’t read her intentions correctly when she asked him out, and that he’d only been going along with it for fear of hurting her feelings rather than any true desire to pursue a romantic relationship-- that he wasn’t even sure if he really knew what romance really _was,_ or what it was _supposed_ to feel like, because to him it always seemed such a nebulous, ephemeral thing that he couldn’t ever manage to grasp in his hands without crushing it into dust. He thought he’d finally identified what it was he felt, but only by taking a hyper-analytical lens to the ashes of it after he’d already went and thoroughly destroyed it. 

He’d even managed to make a mess of his explanation, stumbling over his words and digging himself into a much worse hole than he’d started out in, which was really saying something. He didn’t want to dwell on it any longer. Georgie had been upset, and then she rather rightfully dumped him, and then the fallout of their massive miscommunication had been so insurmountably awkward that they’d just stopped talking to each other altogether. End of story. 

Except now it _wasn’t_ the end of the story, because Helen came along and decided enough was enough, and now Jon was holding his breath as he waited for Georgie’s reply and hoping he hadn’t gone and messed it up once again by bringing it up at all. 

“Thank you,” she said finally, “for apologizing. And I guess I kinda… maybe owe you an apology as well.” 

“What?” Jon said, surprised. “No, no, wait, it’s not--” 

“It _is,_ partially, my fault,” Georgie said firmly. “I’ve had a lot of time to think on things. Communication goes both ways, Jon. Yeah, it was a seriously dick move of you to just start avoiding me out of nowhere, and yeah, it made me feel pretty bad to learn that I’d apparently been going out with someone who didn’t even feel that way about me for months-- which I had to learn by cornering you in a hallway and demanding to be told what the hell was going on, which, y’know, also didn’t make me feel too great about any of it.”

“That’s fair,” Jon chimed in remorsefully. 

_“But…”_ Georgie trailed off for a moment. “I also… I should have communicated more clearly with you instead of just _assuming_ you understood everything, so… I’m sorry, too. I should have been more open with you. You’re not psychic, and it wasn’t fair of me to expect some sort of fairytale romance where we finish each other’s sentences and never have to talk about, you know, _feelings_ and other embarrassing junk like that. You told me you didn’t actually understand what was going on at first, and… that’s kind of on me. I probably could have been clearer.” 

Jon fidgeted uncomfortably. “Maybe so, but… I certainly wasn’t _helping_ matters. I didn’t have to-- act so ridiculous about it.” 

He heard her laugh a little. “No, you didn’t,” Georgie said, “but it’s nice to hear you say that. So…” she paused. “I guess what I’m saying is… apology accepted. I think I forgive you. I hope you can forgive me, too.” 

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Jon mumbled, but he knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t accept that answer, so he added, “of course I do.” 

“Good,” she said at that, quietly relieved, “good.” 

There was silence for a long moment at that. Jon had no idea what to say, and so after a beat or two he blurted out, “by the way, I’m back to hunting monsters again, apparently.” 

Georgie processed this in stunned silence briefly, and then burst out laughing. 

“Again?” She asked, amused. “Now, remind me, didn’t Elias like, command you to stop fighting supernatural terrors after one of them stole your bones?” 

“Yes, he did,” Jon confirmed, “so please don’t tell him. He would be _very_ upset with me.” 

“Oh my god, I’m not going to tell him,” Georgie assured him. 

“I would be _so_ grounded,” Jon continued, and Georgie laughed. 

“To be honest, I can’t tell if I’m more amazed that you’re back at it again after literally having had bones forcibly removed from your body, or if I’m more amazed it took you this long,” Georgie teased. 

“Hey! What was I supposed to do, just _ignore_ the evil worms?” 

“Evil worms??” Georgie echoed disbelievingly, and then Jon launched into an abbreviated but highly animated retelling of the battle against the worms, more than once getting sidetracked by topics like the tunnels’ general existence and the fun fact that worms, very understandably, do not enjoy being extinguished. 

“Jon, you guys could have died or something!” Georgie exclaimed when he got to explaining how one of the worms burrowed into Sasha’s shoulder and had to be removed via Michael’s intervention. 

“Yeah, I…. yeah, probably,” Jon admitted. “But… we didn’t, so that must count for something, right?” 

“I’m obviously glad you didn’t die in some sort of… evil worm accident,” Georgie said, “but that’s… I mean, it’s still not _great?”_

“It… wasn’t,” Jon agreed reluctantly. “But-- I mean, o- other than that, I haven’t-- we haven’t been out _seeking out_ these sorts of things,” he said a little defensively. “This one just sort of… came to us. I- I couldn’t exactly just _look away.”_

“I know,” Georgie sighed. “Jonathan Sims, I swear to god, one of these days you’re gonna tell me you’re off to go save the world or whatever, and I’m just going to have to believe you, aren’t I?” 

“I don’t know about _that,”_ Jon protested. “I’m hardly _saving the world,_ just…” 

“I didn’t say you were, I said I wouldn’t be surprised if you eventually took it upon yourself,” Georgie pointed out. “That’s sort of just the way you are. Always have been-- you’re always looking too deep into things and getting yourself caught up in something bigger than you are, and then you get _obsessive_ about it, make it your responsibility to…” she stopped, trailing off, and then sighing. “But I guess you probably don’t need to be told that, do you? I guess it’s just… I dunno. Promise you’ll at least be careful, alright?” She said softly. 

“I- I will,” Jon said immediately. “I’m-- I’m being careful. And all this stuff, with the-- worms, and all that, it should all be over now. So there’ll be no more of that,” he said in a way he hoped was reassuring. 

In truth, the longer everything remained seemingly calm after having dealt with the Hive and left the tunnels behind them, the more Jon started to get this creeping, unshakeable feeling that whatever they’d uncovered down there was only the beginning of it, that sooner or later they were going to have no choice but to go back and finish what they’d started. But Georgie didn’t need to know that. He kept his fears to himself for now. 

“Good,” Georgie said finally, seeming to accept his answer. Now it was her turn to fidget awkwardly in the ensuing silence, and after a moment she said, “soooo… you know there’s a dance coming up, right?” 

“...I’m aware,” Jon said flatly. 

“You going to be there?” Georgie asked casually. “I am, uh-- I mean, m- me and Melanie will be going. You?” 

“I will absolutely _not_ be attending,” Jon said dryly, and Georgie laughed a little, amused by the predictable distaste in his tone. 

He was made _very_ aware of the upcoming winter formal by the fact that every year his friends tried to badger him into going, and every year he vehemently declined to do so. He didn’t have very long to get indignant about it, though, because the bell finally rang. 

“Well…” Georgie said. “I guess we’re both going to have to… actually head to class now.” 

“So it seems,” Jon agreed hesitantly. 

(It was funny. He’d been so mortified and resistant to having this conversation at all to begin with, and now he was reluctant to let go.) 

Georgie paused for a moment and then said, “have Helen give you my number, okay?” 

“I-- I will,” Jon said, trying to hide the hopeful surprise in his voice. 

“Keep in touch,” Georgie said, more firmly this time. 

A smile crept onto Jon’s face. “I will,” he promised. 

“I’ll… see you soon?” Georgie added a little uncertainly, and Jon laughed. 

“I’d like that,” Jon said softly. “Right, well… I’m-- I’m glad we got to talk. Don’t let me hold you up any further, though.” 

“Take care,” Georgie said in farewell, and then Jon was left sitting in the slowly emptying cafeteria holding Helen’s phone, staring at it and having no clue how to process any of the conversation he’d just had, or how he was meant to return this to Helen. 

He didn’t have to wonder for more than a moment, as he soon saw Helen making her way towards him from not far around the corner, looking rather pleased with herself. 

“Soooo… how’d it go?” asked Helen with a decidedly smug look. 

“It went… surprisingly well,” Jon admitted as he handed her phone back. “We, um… it was-- it was good to catch up a bit. Talk about some things that we, uh,” Jon felt his face heat up a little with embarrassment, “probably should have talked about a long time ago.” 

A triumphant grin spread across Helen’s face. “I knew it,” she said, and Jon rolled his eyes. 

“That’s why you insisted on sitting with me today, isn’t it?” Jon said. “You planned this.” 

“No, Jon,” Helen said, shaking her head teasingly. “It was too good an opportunity to pass up, sure. But is it so hard to believe I just thought you might like the company?” 

“Forgive me if I say it is,” Jon admitted, frowning. He had only just met Helen recently-- he was struggling to understand why she was seemingly going out of her way to keep an eye on him. 

Helen smiled at that, an oddly knowing glint in her eyes. “I have my own reasons for wanting to get to know you a little more,” she said, “so I suppose you’ll just have to forgive the intrusion, then.” 

Then, before Jon could manage to formulate a question in response to that, Helen readjusted the strap of her backpack and simply said, “well, we’d best not be late, hm?” 

“Oh, I-- right,” Jon mumbled, glancing around apprehensively. “Er… I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” 

“That you will,” said Helen, like it was a promise she would hold him to. “Bye, now,” she said lightly, and with that she turned to leave. 

Jon stood and watched her go for another moment as he tried to figure out what it was she meant by that, or by any of it, and where exactly Helen fit into the puzzle he couldn’t help but feel that he hadn’t solved at all. 

Too many variables, he decided. This would have to be a mystery for another day. For now, he had classes to dread, and, hopefully, another talk with Georgie to look forward to soon, and that would just have to be enough for him, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, but for real. Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that Helen has probably been given the absolute WILDEST secondhand picture of Jon as a person by her friends that know him, like can you blame her for wanting to get a better read on him when the hot takes on this Jon guy have been like 
> 
> Georgie: oh Jon my bastard dumbass ex whom i love. best friend. terrible boy i miss him no i dont <3  
> Melanie: *hates the guy with a vicious passion for completely unrelated reasons*   
> Michael: it’s not like I like him or anything!!! [obviously likes him] 
> 
> LIKE… who is this man. WHO IS THIS JON
> 
> also I wanna say: ace Jon rights!! we love an icon (eyecon if you will? ...no?) though on a somewhat more serious note, demi!Jon is specifically very near and dear to my heart, and while I initially hadn’t intended that to come up so much in this fic, it just sort of Happened when I was writing him. His difficulties untangling what it is to Have Feelings for someone are, loosely, based off of my own experiences. :) 
> 
> So, believe it or not, we are now most of the way through arc 1 interlude. By my count, unless I’ve miscalculated, **Chapter 27 should be the final chapter of arc 1 interlude,** and Chapter 28 SHOULD be the first chapter of arc 2. Hooray! though of course I’ll let you know for sure when we’ve reached that point. 
> 
> I’m hoping to have the next chapter up sometime around the 8th of November. Until next time!


	26. Chapter 26

“Guys, this is an emergency,” said Tim in a dead-serious tone. 

“What’s the emergency?” said Martin, sitting down at his usual spot at their usual cafeteria table, which was the one across from Tim and next to Jon. Or rather, the empty place where Jon _usually_ was, as he had yet to arrive. Sasha, on the other hand, was very much present, and she was looking at Martin with an expression just as grave and devious as Tim’s. 

That expression rarely seemed to bode well with those two. 

“We have to come up with a plan to drag Jon to the winter formal,” Tim declared. 

_“Ah,”_ Martin said. So _that_ was their evil scheme for the day. 

“Otherwise, he’s just going to be boring and skip like he always does, and since we’ve only got one more year of high school after this, that means… our number of opportunities to embarrass Jon at school dances is _rapidly_ running out,” Sasha added gravely. 

Whenever there was a dance, the three of them would generally go together, if only just as a fun excuse to hang out. They would always try to convince Jon to tag along with them just for fun, and even though he declined to attend every time and always had, Tim and Sasha somehow never failed to be shocked and scandalized by his refusal. 

This year, it seemed, they had made it their mission to thwart Jon’s attempts to stay at home and be antisocial in his room by himself, whether he liked it or not. 

“Er… Right,” said Martin, frowning. “Where is Jon, anyway?” 

“No idea,” Sasha shrugged. “He probably won’t be long, though, so we don’t have long to plot against him.” 

“Um, yeah, for sure…” Martin said. “So, is Michael not coming, then?” 

“Yeah, I thought you guys were going to invite him to come sit with us?” Sasha asked Tim and Martin. 

“We did,” Tim said, frowning a bit. “Or, we keep trying to. I dunno what’s gotten into him lately.” Sasha just hummed worriedly in response. 

None of them had really seen much of him around, lately. Michael had been… distant. 

“Maybe my charm factor is just too intimidating for him,” Tim decided after a moment. 

“Oh, yep, that’s gotta be it,” Sasha agreed solemnly, and Tim beamed despite the fact that she’d mostly meant it as a joke. Martin shook his head in amusement. 

“Anyway, so about dragging Jon to the dance--” Tim started, breaking off when Sasha suddenly shushed him and gestured discreetly to a rather perturbed-looking Jon as he all but stomped towards them. 

“Aw, damn, that didn’t take long,” Tim murmured, dismayed. 

Sasha leaned over and stage-whispered, “don’t worry. I think I have… _a plan.”_

“Oh, _do_ you now?” said Tim, wiggling his eyebrows, but Sasha just emphatically mouthed _I’ll tell you later_ as Jon reached them, plunking down in his usual spot beside Martin with a huff. 

“Do you want to know what I find vexing?” Jon volunteered immediately, clearly gearing up to go on a tear about whatever his latest indignation was. 

“What do you find vexing, Jon,” Sasha asked him charitably, and Jon instantly launched into a tirade about those weird little pseudo-motivational quotes about how one’s moral character is defined by how they act when no one is watching, or whatever. 

“I just think it’s absurd!” Jon fumbled, making a furious gesture with his hands as he tried to explain why he was so irritated. 

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Tim agreed. “Like, it’s not as if every time someone gets left to their own devices they’re gonna commit arson or something, that’s crazy.” 

“Yeah, that’s just Gerry,” Sasha chimed in. 

“I’m pretty sure that’s not what the saying is supposed to mean,” Martin offered. 

“No, no,” Jon said. “If one cannot observe true character except in a state of complete isolation from any potential viewing parties, then there is no such thing as true character, is what I’m saying.” 

“...You mean, like, Schrödinger’s moral character, if you can’t look at it then it’s not actually there?” Sasha suggested. 

“No,” said Tim, “I’m pretty sure that would mean that it exists and doesn’t exist at the same time, not necessarily that it isn’t _real_ unless you’re looking at it.”

“Well--” Sasha started to say. 

“--That’s not it, either,” Jon shook his head. “For one-- _you’re_ always watching you, aren’t you?” 

“What?” said Sasha. 

“It’s just ridiculous,” Jon insisted. “I just don’t like the assumption that I’m not already constantly self-modifying my own behavior as it is! Aren’t we all just spectators of our own lives??” 

“Um, well,” Tim started. 

“The self is just a construct designed to be seen! I don’t get it!” Jon exclaimed. 

“Yeah, sure, but--” Martin tried to say. 

“--If the only true character can be seen when _no one is watching_ or what have you, then it doesn’t exist, because you’re never not being watched,” Jon concluded indignantly. 

Sasha, Tim and Martin exchanged vaguely unsettled glances. 

“Jon, you realize that’s, like, objectively a really disturbing thing to say, right?” Tim said finally. 

Becoming self-conscious, Jon crossed his arms over his chest and said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” 

“No, no, hang on now. Are you trying to tell us you, what, feel like you’re being watched all the time or something all of a sudden?” Tim pressed him, and Jon shifted uncomfortably. 

“Er-- n- no, of course not,” Jon said quickly, realizing he had apparently made a mistake.

“No?” Tim said skeptically. “Because it kind of sounds like that’s exactly what you’re saying.” 

Martin, who knew for a fact that Jon absolutely _did_ feel that way on account of Jon’s little breakdown while the two were alone in the tunnels, decided not to comment. Still, he _remembered_ the way Jon had panicked when asked to explain those seemingly otherworldly insights of his, the way he was driven nearly to tears and hysteria at the thought of it. 

_(It’ll know,_ Jon had insisted desperately. _If I say anything, it’ll know.)_

“I don’t… N- Not any moreso than usual,” Jon mumbled. 

“There is no usual, Jon,” Tim insisted. “There is absolutely no amount of spooky _always being seen_ or whatever that’s normal.” 

“Isn’t there?” Jon murmured under his breath. 

_“No??”_ Tim said, frowning. “Are you sure you’re not being haunted or something??” 

“What-- god’s sake, Tim, I’m not being haunted!” Jon groused. “That doesn’t--” 

“You know,” Sasha said abruptly, “it’s probably because he lives with Elias, and he’s, well, all _weird_ like that, don’t you think?” And Jon suddenly went pale. 

“Ohhhhh,” Tim said, nodding, “yeah, sure, that makes sense. There’s your problem.” 

“No, no, no, wait,” Jon shook his head, “you’ve got it all wrong, he-- that’s not-- that doesn’t have anything to do with it, you don’t understand. I don’t think Elias is always perceiving me or whatever, th- that would be absurd.” 

“Are you sure?” Tim said. “That guy _is_ really spooky, you have to admit. I wouldn’t be surprised…” 

“First of all, I’m _not_ going to comment on the use of the word ‘spooky’,” Jon decided, frowning in annoyance, “but I know for a fact that he can’t be, and my evidence is that if he _were_ always watching me or what have you, then I would absolutely be in much, _much_ more trouble than I am. Therefore, that must not be the case.” 

“...Alright, that’s fair,” Sasha decided. “Guess we can’t argue with the fact that you’re not currently grounded as we speak and all.” 

“Well, there’s that, at least?” Martin said cautiously. Jon nodded, looking apprehensive. 

“I _do_ think he reads my mind, however, which is a separate thing,” Jon added carefully after a moment. 

It was obvious from the way Jon was looking at them all that he was testing the weight of his words against his friends’ reactions, and he was profoundly dismayed by how appalled and chagrined they all looked at his admission. 

“That’s not great,” Tim said finally, seeming concerned. 

“I- It’s not that big of a deal, really, I’m used to it,” Jon tried to explain weakly, fidgeting. 

“I think that actually makes it worse,” Sasha said helpfully, and Jon just sighed in defeat. 

* * *

He had no way of determining the origin point of this feeling. As best as he could possibly tell, as far back as he could reach, he’d had it his whole life. 

To Jon, what it felt like, mostly, was a sort of constant background awareness of his every action, all the time. To some extent it could be said to come and go, and certainly at times he could manage to more-or-less put it out of his mind or ignore it; conversely, at other times he would become hyper-conscious of it until it became nearly crushing in its intensity. It felt a bit like a constant compulsion to make sure his actions seemed in some way _rational_ from an outside perspective, even when there was, ostensibly, no outside perspective to justify himself to. It was a little bit like he could never quite feel entirely alone. Like no matter how much he tried to bury it, that feeling would always be there, just underneath the surface. 

When he was young-- very, very young-- Jon remembered finding that feeling as natural as breathing. He faintly remembered finding it almost _soothing._ He wasn’t entirely sure when he started to realize that maybe he wasn’t supposed to feel that way. 

It took him a long time to connect the dots, give a name to that feeling. _Being watched._

Sometimes he still managed to forget that it was something he wasn’t supposed to talk about, as invariably, it tended to make people upset as it had with his friends earlier that day at school. It was so normalized to him that it was just… background noise. And yet, somehow, trying to reassure his friends that he was so familiar with that feeling as to know it like the back of his own hand-- it didn’t seem to make them feel any better. 

As much as the two went hand in hand very readily, that feeling was a very different phenomenon from Jon’s suspicion that Elias could read his mind. It was… difficult for him to articulate how he knew this, as evidenced by the fact that he’d had little luck in convincing his friends of the difference. But the differences were there. The differences mattered to _him._

While Jon could pin down with complete certainty the specific day he came to suspect that Elias could seemingly see the future-- the day his grandmother was killed-- the feeling that the inside of his mind was not necessarily safe from the prying eyes of his guardian was… trickier. There was no singular incident that made that fear crystallize, no dawning realization to look back upon. 

What he had instead was a collection of moments, little oddities filed away over time, again and again, until he had enough of those small moments to shape paranoia from. 

It was a difficult paranoia to have. Once that seed was planted, it became a sort of never-ending game rigged against his favor. Suddenly nothing could ever be deemed conclusive, everything could possibly be a coincidence depending on how far he was able to rationalize it-- and simultaneously nothing could ever be innocent, and everything, no matter how small, was potential evidence. No, what Jon had was an eternally growing list of little discrepancies he’d noted about Elias over the years that _might be proof_ that his guardian could read his mind, or that he was psychic, or _whatever,_ but never anything solid enough to _act_ on. 

It was… exhausting. Constantly watching himself. Watching the inside of his mind. He was used to it-- he should have been used to it-- but it was so, so exhausting. 

To further complicate matters… what was Jon so afraid of his guardian _knowing,_ exactly? Lately he supposed it was his excursions down into the tunnels, but… that was over and done with, and now he was almost sure he had nothing to hide. That was the thought he’d wrestled with endlessly: what, exactly, was he so worried about? 

He could never quite manage to come up with an answer. 

It wasn’t like he could just ask Elias point-blank if he was a mind reader. Or, rather… maybe not directly, but Jon had certainly tried to _imply_ as much in the past, upon occasion. Even at the closest to a blunt accusation Jon could ever bring himself to make, however, Elias would just smile nonchalantly and say, _you really still think I’m psychic?_ in a way that made it clear what the correct answer was meant to be, like it was the most childishly amusing thing he’d ever heard. Jon would mumble some half-hearted deflection in response, and leave feeling conflicted and not nearly as reassured as he would have liked. (Then, later, it would quietly occur to him that no part of his guardian’s reply had been denial.)

Most of the time-- all of the time, if he was being honest with himself-- it was always just little, innocuous things. Jon couldn’t come up with any grand machinations to attribute to Elias’s weird sixth sense that told him things like when Jon dropped the sugar dish and thus needed more sugar, or when Jon had been meaning to mention that he needed a new pair of gloves but hadn’t said anything, or when Jon needed help and wasn’t asking for it. The only part that was inherently suspicious was the specific pattern of knowing without being told, and even then, it wasn’t as if there was anything especially _sinister_ about what he did with that knowledge. That he knew of. They were all just… harmless little incidents. 

Sometimes, Jon almost felt that it would have been easier for him if they _weren’t._

* * *

_“What_ is your matter today,” Elias finally spoke up from the other side of the kitchen, closing the fridge. Jon, who had been lost in thought again, nearly startled out of his own skin at the sound. 

_Oh, no, he’s doing it right now, he’s reading my mind,_ Jon thought wildly for a moment, pulse hammering irrationally. 

“You have been standing there, disapprovingly scrutinizing the contents of the pantry, for nearly two minutes now,” Elias said as if in explanation, and Jon forced himself to relax a little. He’d just been overreacting again-- that was it. 

_Unless that’s what he wants me to think,_ Jon’s paranoia helpfully supplied, and he grimaced, shaking his head and mentally shoving that thought back where it came from with a broom. He had no time for that nonsense. 

“I know you’re not just reading the nutrition facts on that box of pasta you’re holding,” Elias continued a little chidingly. “What’s the matter with you?” 

Jon sighed. “Er… I just got distracted. It’s nothing.” 

His guardian hummed neutrally in response. “Then if you would finish putting that away,” he prompted Jon, “we still have dinner to worry about, need I remind you.” 

“R- Right. Of course,” Jon said. 

He finished putting away the dry goods, and then gathered up the grocery bags and put them away as well. “Right, so, who’s doing dinner, who’s doing dishes,” his guardian was mumbling as Jon returned to the kitchen. 

“Don’t know,” Jon shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure whose turn it is.”

“Helpful as always,” Elias said flatly. He considered and said, “I think it’s mine.”

“Hmm… are you sure? I feel like you cooked last time, I did dishes. Right? Or…?” 

“No, no,” Elias said, “One of your little friends called you right in the middle of prep last time, remember?” 

“Ah-- yes. That’s true.” Jon frowned a little, thinking of it. 

Maybe he should call Michael again, actually. Just-- Just to make sure he was alright. He shook his head. 

“I remember now,” Jon said. And then he added, “by the way, my _little friends_ have names, you know.” 

“Oh, sure, twenty-four in between the lot of them, in fact,” said Elias absently as he looked in a cabinet. 

Then Elias made an odd expression, and Jon said, “what?” and Elias just shook his head like it was an inside joke he didn’t feel the need to explain. 

Whatever. 

“Alright, do me a favor and clean the blue pan in the sink for me,” Elias said distractedly. 

“No?” said Jon. “There’s another one the exact same size in the cabinet you were _just_ looking in.” 

“Yes, well,” Elias frowned, “I’m asking you for the _other_ one, so if you would just…” 

“Give me one good reason you can’t use the pan you already have,” Jon said. 

Elias fidgeted. “Well, the handle is loose.” 

“And?” 

“I don’t _like_ it,” Elias said plainly, annoyed. 

“First of all,” Jon said, “the handle being loose is, in fact, something you could _fix_ if you were so inclined. And even if you weren’t, you could just throw it away if you don’t like it so much-- no one is forcing you to keep it. You _are_ the adult in this house.” 

“Jon…,” Elias tried to say, seeming unimpressed. 

“You understand that you are in direct control over the pans we do and don’t have,” said Jon. 

His guardian just looked at him, exasperated. 

“Will you _please_ just do as I say,” Elias sighed eventually. 

Jon just rolled his eyes, trying and failing not to smile, but he complied nonetheless. In another minute or two he had the requested pan cleaned and dried and he handed it to Elias, who said, “was that really so hard?” 

“I don’t know, it looks to me like it’s you who’s having all the problems here,” Jon ribbed him. 

Elias just shook his head. “Disobedient child,” he quipped. 

“Excuse you!” Jon said, mock-offended, “I am _not_ disobedient, I’m an _argumentative_ child, and I’ll have you respect the difference, thank you very much.” 

“Oh, certainly, because you’ve never disobeyed anything I’ve said, ever, in your entire life,” Elias said flatly. 

“Correct,” Jon said solemnly, and Elias just sighed. 

“Are you helping or not?” 

“What do you think I’m doing right now?” Jon responded. 

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Elias said, and with that he handed him a vegetable to dice. 

There was nothing otherwise unusual about the pattern of the evening. This was, in itself, soothing in its routine quality, and thus it only took Jon a few minutes to space out once more. 

He started thinking about Georgie, and the conversation they’d had at Helen’s stubborn insistence the other day; the two had since exchanged numbers, and were tentatively talking again. It was… difficult to navigate the same well-worn friendship on newer, more unsteady footing, but they were trying, and that was all that mattered. 

Which, Jon supposed, reminded him that he really ought to let Martin, Tim and Sasha know that he was talking to Georgie again. They would certainly be excited by the news. Why hadn’t he done that today? He was sure he’d been meaning to. Something must have-- oh. 

Right. He had been distracted by some asinine poster hanging up in the hall outside of a classroom, and then in the ensuing rant to his friends, he’d forgotten all about it. 

Not that he’d had any time to bring it up once he’d accidentally let slip some little tidbit of his ridiculous personal paranoias, being that he’d had to spend the rest of lunch trying to reassure his friends that, no, it _wasn’t_ as bad as it sounded, and he was _fine,_ and that Jon had it handled, thank you very much. 

He did _not_ have _‘a syndrome or something’._ Ridiculous. 

Still, Jon frowned, fidgeting restlessly. What did they want _him_ to do about it, anyway? What was he supposed to do, demand that his guardian admit to reading his mind, out of the blue, right in the middle of dinner? Interrogate him as to why it was, ever since he was a child and long before Elias even had any responsibility for him, that Jon had always felt so… _watched?_

He didn’t know how he could even _begin_ to approach such overwhelming, alarming topics. He didn’t know how to bring it up, and so he wouldn’t. End of story. 

Right as he thought this, Elias asked, “Jon, are you sure you’re doing alright?” 

If Jon hesitated and scrambled for a beat too long to put his thoughts back together in some semblance of rationality before he simply mumbled, “I’m fine, it’s nothing,” then Elias didn’t push. Out of the corner of his eye, though, when he thought Jon wasn’t paying attention, he caught Elias watching him with an odd, concerned expression. 

Now he had Elias _worrying_ about him. Jon sighed, made a mental note to himself to remember to tell his friends that he was on speaking terms with Georgie again on Monday, and put the whole topic behind him. 

Eventually Jon said, “so, what did you think of the curry I made last time, by the way? I don’t think you ever told me.” 

“Oh,” said Elias, suddenly becoming very interested in what was on the stove, “it was just fine, thank you.” 

“That’s good,” said Jon, quietly pleased. 

That was a recipe he’d picked up from his grandma. Or rather, his grandma used to make it, and sometimes Jon got himself into an odd, sentimental mood and tried very hard to recreate it as best as he could, with varying levels of success. 

Elias hummed neutrally. “Though if I may, perhaps… suggest…” he started tentatively. 

“If you are about to imply that it was in any way _too spicy,_ then I’m sorry to tell you this, but you are wrong and a coward and I will not be heeding your suggestion,” Jon informed him. 

“Oh, hm? What’s that? Why, I seem to have entirely forgotten what I was going to say, how peculiar,” Elias said lightly, and Jon just shook his head at him. “No. Really, it was good.”

Then Elias suddenly sighed in annoyance. “Mind this pan for me, will you?” He said, and right at that, as if on cue, the phone began to ring-- a work call, Jon guessed. Elias wordlessly handed Jon a spatula, and with that he walked away, not giving Jon the chance to say anything in reply and muttering something that sounded like _what now._

Weird. 

Or, perhaps, not that weird. Usually Jon would have hardly even noticed such a thing at this point, but, well, he had already been paranoid today, and so it stood out more than it should have. Nevertheless, he quietly filed that moment away under _evidence Elias can see the future_ in his head and turned his attention back to the stir-fry he was supposed to be minding. 

In time Elias returned, right around when everything was starting to look done. “I trust everything hasn’t descended into chaos and ruination in my absence?” He said. 

“Seeing as I haven’t managed to burn anything in only a few minutes of unsupervision, I’d say I’m doing just fine,” Jon said as he turned off the burner. 

“So it seems,” Elias agreed. 

“I _am_ getting better at this, you know,” Jon said with only a touch of defensiveness. Considering that neither of them ever had much reason to know how to cook until a few years back, Jon liked to think that he was quite good at it now, actually. His grandma had always told him he was hopeless, but… here he was now, wasn’t he?

“Of course, of course. I never said you weren’t,” Elias said, looking amused. Then after a moment his expression turned a shade more solemn, and he turned away, moving to the cupboard to get out some plates. But then he stopped. 

“Well-- I suppose as long as your mother isn’t rolling in her grave over our bad cooking anymore, then we can probably call ourselves successful, hm?” said Elias, and his voice had the cadence of a joke, but there was something odd in the tone of it, something that gave Jon pause. 

“Hm,” Jon said neutrally, trying to suppress his apprehensive curiosity as his guardian busied himself with setup. 

That wasn’t something he normally joked about, Jon decided. That wasn’t something they normally talked about at all. There was a question forming on the tip of his tongue. If only he knew how to _ask._

What Jon eventually found himself saying, after a brief period of intense deliberation, was, “do you still miss her?” 

Elias became still, his back turned. For a moment Jon was certain he had misstepped, and that Elias was just going to shut him down. But then he sighed, shaking his head a little. 

“Yes,” Elias admitted, “of course I do. Both of them. They were--” he broke off, looking uncharacteristically uncertain for a moment. “Do you?” 

“I’m… not sure,” Jon admitted honestly. The period of his life that his mother had been _present_ for-- it was distant to him now, after all this time. 

He looked back upon it with fondness, certainly, and a small handful of his most cherished memories came from that time… but whether or not he _still_ missed her, in the present tense, that was more difficult for him to determine. 

At the time, Jon knew-- the loss hit him hard, and he had taken it very poorly. There was… a period of a month or two afterwards that Jon barely remembered at all except as a haze of anguish and change. He had missed her then. He had missed her so much that he’d been paralyzed with the weight of it. 

“I think so,” Jon said at length, uncertain. “I… I don’t really know. Is that strange?” 

Elias just shook his head. “You don’t remember them very well, do you? Either of them.” 

“Not… as well as I’d like,” Jon agreed hesitantly. “My mother-- sort of. My father… I don’t really know _anything_ about him, to tell you the truth.” 

Since they’d already approached the unapproachable, Jon decided he may as well investigate further. “What was he like?” Jon asked, and there was silence for a moment. 

“You… don’t usually ask,” Elias said hesitantly. 

“You don’t usually answer,” Jon pointed out carefully. 

Elias sighed. “Jon…” he said, “the last time you really wanted to know anything like this-- you were six years old, and we were both still grieving. I honestly didn’t feel it was appropriate, at the time-- anything I could have told you would have only made you feel worse. But… you’re grown now. I trust you’re mature enough to handle yourself, so…” he shifted a little. “If that’s something you really want to discuss, I see no reason why we can’t.” 

“Alright,” Jon agreed quietly, “if that’s alright with you.” 

He then became aware of the fact that they were still standing uncomfortably in the kitchen and staring awkwardly at their now-cooling dinner, because this was the part where they usually took their food to their respective desks, which would not work. 

_“Now_ look what you’ve done,” said Elias disapprovingly. “Now we’re going to have to sit at the dinner table together and have a _conversation,_ like functional human beings. Unbelievable.” 

“Oh, god forbid,” Jon said and rolled his eyes. 

The problem was, mostly, that they had to figure out what to do with the rather impressive amount of junk mail and miscellany that had accumulated on the dinner table before they could sit down with their dinner. And then they had to actually _sit down._ Was Jon meant to sit next to him or across from him? They didn’t really sit at the table often enough for Jon to have a clue. He waited for Elias to take a seat first before choosing a place himself, and then realized he’d gone and picked the wobbly chair, which he hated. 

Unsteady chairs and loose pan handles and dysfunctional dinner routines. They were a mess. 

“I… don’t… I’ve no idea where to even begin,” Elias admitted after a moment of hesitation. 

“Well,” said Jon, “being that I know quite literally nothing, I suppose _anywhere_ would suffice.” 

Elias sighed. “The beginning, then, I suppose. Do you-- remember their names, at all?” 

“From living memory? Certainly not. From my mother’s tombstone, though, I gather that her name must have been Samantha,” Jon mumbled a little darkly. 

“Sammy,” Elias said immediately, “was what she liked to be called. But I suppose it was your father you asked about-- it was him I met first, and Parker was his name. They knew me because, for some unfathomable reason, they wanted to. That is to say, no amount of-- _overt_ displays of asocial behavior and thinly-veiled refusals could ever quite manage to… dissuade them, from trying to know me. Parker, especially.” Elias paused for a moment, contemplative, and then he said, “he had terrible taste in books.” 

Jon… stared at him, dumbfounded. “And that’s the first thing you want me to know about him… _why,_ exactly?” 

“Oh, I’ll tell you why,” Elias smiled, amused. “Back when we first met-- I was in the campus library-- _minding my own business,_ mind you, when this man I’ve never met before sat himself down at my table. He introduced himself, wanted to know what I was reading and, generally, was trying to be much more talkative than I was in the mood for. And he just wouldn’t go _away,_ no matter how completely unreceptive I was, and so eventually I just got frustrated and left early. So, I went on with the rest of my day, and nearly forgot all about him,” Elias said. 

“Let me guess,” Jon ventured, “that was far from the last of him.” 

“Oh, definitely not,” Elias agreed. “The next day I turned up at the library… to find this man… _already sitting_ at my usual table. And what he said, as he excitedly waved me over, heedless to my death glare of outraged indignation, was, ‘hey, I read that book of yours!’-- right before launching into a _meticulous_ analysis of whatever he thought it was supposed to be about. After he was satisfied with that, he pulled another book out of his bag, told me he thought I’d like it, and then he simply said goodbye and left. And, of course, he was back again the next day, although at that point I was no longer surprised-- he wanted to know if I’d read his book. I told him I hadn’t, because, and I quote, ‘I don’t have that kind of time to waste,’ and… do you want to know what he said to that? He said, ‘oh, that’s alright, I understand.’ And then he explained, in detail, the _entire_ plot of the book,” Elias said emphatically. “And _that_ man, of course, was your father, and that is how we met.” 

“...That’s horrifying,” said Jon, because being aloof and unsociable was _very_ much something he and Elias had in common. 

“It felt rather like a stranger was barging into my house and forcing me to attend book club against my will,” Elias informed him, and Jon tried _so_ hard not to laugh, he really did. 

“And he kept coming _back,_ is the thing,” Elias continued, “and he kept trying to _talk_ to me. After a few weeks of that I… got used to it, or I tolerated it, I suppose, which he seemed to take to mean we were friends now. So eventually he said, ‘hey, come meet my girlfriend. She’s great, you would like her.’ Of course, I told him, ‘absolutely not, I will do no such thing,’ which he paid no heed to whatsoever. Needless to say, I was all but bodily _dragged_ into meeting this girl.” 

“And… was that my mother?” Jon asked, trying to suppress a grin. 

“It was,” Elias agreed, openly smiling. “And he was right, of course. We got along quite well. God only knows how she ever managed to handle him, or why they were both so… _dead set_ on liking me. I certainly didn’t make it easy for them.” He shook his head a little at the memory of it. “They wore me down, you know. Never took no for an answer. Eventually I had no choice but to accept that, much to my horror, I had _friends_ now.” 

“Ah, I think I know the feeling,” Jon said, laughing softly. There was something very familiar about the story, indeed-- Jon was immeasurably fortunate to have found himself surrounded as he was by such good people, Sasha and Martin and Tim and the others. How differently would things have gone for him if they all hadn’t stubbornly decided to care about him? 

_They knew me because they wanted to,_ Elias had said. Yes, that was something Jon understood-- there was a sort of reckless, intentional kindness there that resonated strongly with him. 

“So yes, you say you want to know what your father was like?” Elias said. “He was… very outgoing. Outright oblivious to hostility or bitterness. Friendly even when it wasn’t deserved. He was very smart, but spacey-- clumsy, even, at times. Determined-- once he had his mind set to something, that was the end of it. Above all, he was unfailingly, unwaveringly patient. He was a good person-- I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone moreso,” Elias said, “and, yes, his taste in literature was _horrendous._ Which I know because he was _not_ shy in pestering me to read whatever new eclectic nonsense he’d discovered.” He paused then, something sentimental in his expression before he added, “I read them all, though. Always did.” 

He gave Jon a moment to turn over the tale in his head, try to put together a picture of this man who he had never gotten the chance to know. 

“Thank you,” said Jon at length, his voice quiet. “For telling me a bit about him, I mean.” 

“So, does that answer your question?” Elias asked.

“For now,” Jon decided, and his guardian just smiled. 

* * *

Another couple minutes and they started to clean up a bit, and Jon groused about the rickety chair as he gathered up the dishes, and Elias complained about work as he wiped down the counters while Jon scrubbed at the pans in the sink. 

They were a mess of a family, Jon supposed. They always would be. And yet, there was something indefinable about this moment that felt… important, somehow. Mundane, maybe-- in so far as anything in their strange, messy lives could ever be mundane-- but, in some strange way, he was content with that. 

It wasn’t until Elias had already said his goodbye and turned to retire for the evening that Jon realized he’d been so distracted by everything that’d happened today that he’d almost forgotten to mention something. 

_Ah._

Well. He _had_ promised them an answer by today, hadn’t he? 

“Wait,” Jon said hesitantly, “just-- one more thing, before you go.” 

Elias stopped. “What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing’s the matter,” Jon fidgeted, preemptively becoming flustered, “I just wanted to… er… a- ask your permission for something…” 

“And what exactly would that be?” Elias prompted him, frowning. 

_Here we go,_ Jon thought, already regretting the fact that he had to bring it up _now_ and cursing his friends for dragging him into it. 

“So… um… the, the dance,” Jon started, “that’s, uh-- happening next weekend, th- the winter formal.” 

“I am, by virtue of my occupation, very much aware of the winter formal, yes,” said Elias obtusely. 

Oh, god, was he really going to make Jon _say_ it? He suppressed a sigh of annoyance-- if his guardian was really a mind reader, why couldn’t he just _know_ so that Jon wouldn’t have to--

“You’re not telling me you want to _go,_ are you?” Elias said suddenly, right on cue, and Jon would have probably been horrified if he hadn’t more-or-less brought this upon himself. 

“I… may have been… _asked,”_ Jon said reluctantly, face burning with embarrassment. 

_“Have_ you now?” Elias said with that insufferable little smile of his, like this was the most amusing thing he’d heard all day. 

“Don’t you look at me like that,” Jon whined. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Elias said, continuing to look at him like that. “If I may ask, who--?”

“You most certainly may _not_ ask who,” Jon said immediately. 

“Well, you’re no fun at all, are you?” 

“Elias,” Jon whined. “Can I go to the dance or not??” 

_“Yes,_ you absolutely can. Honestly, Jon! This is exciting news, I never thought I’d see the day when you _voluntarily--”_ Elias started to say, grinning widely, and Jon thought he was going to combust on the spot with embarrassment. 

“Oh my, w- would you look at the time! I have to go now!” Jon declared, physically exiting the conversation and speed-walking down the hall. (Elias just shook his head in amusement at him, which Jon very pointedly did _not_ see.) 

Once inside his room, Jon flopped melodramatically onto his bed and promptly buried his immense mortification under as many blankets as possible. It was then that he remembered he was still going to have to relay his guardian’s answer to Tim, Sasha and Martin, and the thought of having a repeat of this interaction made him groan in despair. 

This school dance was going to be the death of him. 

(At least his friends would be happy, though, and that made it worthwhile.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~wanna take a guess who asked Jon to the dance lmao~~
> 
> I wanted to elaborate a bit on Elias saying Jon’s friends have “twenty-four [names] in between the lot of them”. So Gerry has the most names out of anyone in Jon’s friend group. As far as I’m concerned, his full name is Gerard “Gerry” [middle name] Keay Delano. That’s 5 names. Gerry has nearly a fourth of the names in Jon’s entire friend group. This man is hogging all the names, meanwhile dear martin kartin blackwood and his fake nonexistent middle name represent only 2 names, the least in his friend group. I’ll let you fill in the rest of the gaps yourself :) 
> 
> Furthermore, on the subject of names… so the first names I gave to Jon’s parents in this fic were chosen so that they match the first initial of Mr. Jonny Sims’s real actual parents, which from Gertrude’s and Leitner’s wiki pages I have learned are Sue and Paul respectively. Unlike Jonny I am not bold enough to knowingly slap a real human person’s name on a fictional character and then kill them off. But! That’s why I picked the names I did for his folks. (This is also not the last we will be hearing of them, or of what happened to them…)


	27. Chapter 27

“Miss Sasha James, my oldest childhood friend,” Jon intoned in greeting as she came forth to meet him. 

To her credit, she did wait until Jon stepped out of the car and his guardian had driven away before doing so, sparing Jon the embarrassment of being seen with his ‘date’. He offered her his hand to hold, and instead she pulled him in for a quick hug. 

“You understand this is an entirely _platonic_ affair,” Jon said dryly as she released him. 

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Sasha teased with a grin. “So dramatic.” 

“That’s quite an accusation, coming from you,” Jon remarked, though a hint of a smile crept onto his face. 

Being that Sasha had all but cornered him all of a sudden after school last Friday and made a big display of ‘asking’ him to the dance, he figured he’d earned a little dramatics himself. He had, of course, been _acutely_ aware at the time that her intention was solely to fluster him enough that he might hastily agree to go, if only to spare himself of any further theatrics. 

Unfortunately, it worked. And now here he was. He suppressed another long-suffering sigh. 

“Are the others here yet?” Jon asked. 

“Martin should be around here somewhere,” Sasha said. “I think he’s already inside. Tim, on the other hand, is _late,_ because he’s terrible and a traitor, but he _should_ be here shortly.” Whether she meant that as an assessment of how likely he was to actually arrive soon or simply as a threat, Jon couldn’t tell. 

“I see,” he said. He shuffled awkwardly for a moment. This was unfamiliar territory for him. What was he supposed to do now? 

“Nice outfit,” Sasha said lightly. 

“Thanks, Elias made me wear it,” Jon said flatly, and Sasha laughed. 

Elias had insisted that Jon’s old formal clothes were too old and no longer suitable, and thus dragged him shopping against his will. While he had to admit that the emerald green color was very striking against his black dress shirt, the price tag on this tie alone was enough to make Jon shudder. Sasha, on the other hand, had her hair done up and was wearing a light blue dress of a faintly shimmering fabric, the loosely pleated skirt of it coming down to just over her knees. “Er… you look nice as well,” Jon said a little stiffly, uncertain if that was the correct thing to say or not. 

Apparently it was, because Sasha brightened and said, “thanks! I should hope so, because these shoes are already killing me!” 

“Excellent start,” Jon remarked, laughing a little. 

“I _know,”_ Sasha lamented, “we haven’t even started dancing yet or _anything._ If they weren’t so damn cute, I’d sentence these shoes to death by fire in a heartbeat, believe me. The things we do for fashion,” she shook her head. 

“Can’t relate,” said Jon. 

“Oh, oh! There he is!” Sasha said suddenly, pointing as she spotted Tim’s car. 

In another moment he’d parked and gotten out, Danny and Nicky in tow. Apparently, Danny and his friend immediately decided that it was uncool to be seen getting escorted to the dance by your big brother, and promptly parted ways with him. This was just as well, as Tim bounded up to Jon and Sasha with all the animation of a golden retriever on a mission. 

“Wow, he actually showed up? Shocking!” Tim exclaimed. “I can’t believe that worked, I thought for sure he was just going to bail on us and, I dunno, go do whatever boring nerds do when they’re shut up in their rooms all day.” 

“This is _stupid,”_ Jon declared in embarrassment, immediately becoming wildly self-conscious and wishing for the thousandth time that he’d done exactly that. 

He would have much preferred to be at home reading an article about the taxonomy of moths, thank you very much. 

“Aw, don’t be like that, Jon, I’m just teasing you!” Tim said lightheartedly, reaching over to ruffle Jon’s hair, which he quietly ducked out of the way of. “I’m glad you could make it, honestly. It’ll be fun, you’ll see!” 

“Will I?” Jon grumbled under his breath. 

“Anyway, shall we?” Tim said, gesturing towards the entrance and ignoring Jon’s grouchiness. 

They had their student IDs checked at the door, and soon enough they were inside. Jon tensed as the sound of half-familiar music and talking voices washed over him, and he nearly froze up in a renewed surge of anxiety. 

In all likelihood, if he had gone to such an event by himself Jon would have quickly become self-conscious and snappish, quickly overwhelmed by the unfamiliar circumstance and the clamor and business. But Sasha led him onward lightly with her arm linked in his, and Tim followed at his other side with a sure-footed confidence, and he trusted in their lead enough to follow without complaint. It was outside of his comfort zone, perhaps, but-- in a way, Tim and Sasha _were_ his comfort zone, and so he allowed himself to take a deep breath and banish the tension from his frame. 

Speaking of comfort zones. 

“There you guys are!” came Martin’s comfortingly familiar voice as he made his way over. 

For just a moment he paused as he saw them, his gaze resting over Sasha’s hand on Jon’s arm, and something hesitant and strange flickered in his eyes, too quick for Jon to parse. “I was really starting to wonder…” Martin said. 

“Ahh-- sorry about that!” said Tim good-naturedly. “My bad, I was running a little on the late side today. My brother couldn’t find his good shoes.” 

“How dare you,” Sasha said in a mock-offended voice. “Keeping us waiting-- the _betrayal._ Rude.” 

“I am _so_ sorry I deprived you all of my awesome presence for like seven minutes,” Tim said solemnly. 

“You’re forgiven,” Sasha decided charitably. Jon just shook his head at them, and Martin laughed, and there was something so contagious about their delight that Jon couldn’t even bring himself to be anything less than fondly exasperated. 

* * *

In the half hour or so Jon had been there, he had taken notice of a few familiar faces among his classmates in attendance. He spotted Agnes hand in hand with her boyfriend-- Jack was his name, wasn’t it?-- and, surprisingly, he even saw Gerry, dressed rather like something straight out of a gothic vampire novel. Incidentally, one of the people who had now managed to _escape_ his sight was Sasha, who had, apparently, gotten distracted and wandered off when Jon wasn’t looking. Fantastic. Now he’d gone and wound up by himself in the midst of a crowd of people, which Jon hated on principle. 

Not that any of his friends could possibly be that far, he thought. This was true in more ways than he realized. 

In fact, Tim and Martin weren’t very far behind at all, and had watched the whole thing; that is, Sasha happened to catch a glimpse of who she thought might be Georgie, promptly got excited, and went off to investigate. Then when Jon turned around to find her suddenly absent, he made an expression like a rather disgruntled cat. Martin stifled a laugh as Jon gestured furiously to himself, shrugging in annoyance and whipping his head this way and that with a look of lost confusion on his face. 

“We really should help him,” Martin told Tim with amusement, but when he turned to look at his friend, he had an oddly mischievous look in his eyes, like he was putting together one of his genius little schemes. 

“Yeah, for sure…” Tim said, a grin slowly spreading across his face. “By all means, you’d better get out there, Martin-- go rescue your damsel in distress! Better ask him to dance with you while you’re at it, don’t you think?” Tim said with an exaggerated wink. 

“What? _No!”_ Martin protested immediately. 

“Why not??” Tim said. “I _know_ you want to, you can’t lie to me! It’s perfect-- this is like, totally the stuff cheesy love poems are made of! The stars have aligned, Martin! Now’s your chance!” 

“What are you even-- you mean like, just, go over there and, and what, no, I- I can’t just--!” Martin stammered, wide-eyed. 

“Yes, you can! You’ve got this! I believe in you!” Tim said enthusiastically. 

_“Tim!!”_ Martin protested desperately. “Not so loud, he might hear you! Besides,” he lowered his voice, “h- he’s technically Sasha’s date, anyway, isn’t he…?” 

“Oh, Martin,” Tim said dismissively, “That doesn’t mean anything-- that was just a ploy to get him here, silly! And it _worked,_ but Sasha doesn’t like him like that and you know it.” 

“Still!!” Martin whined. 

“Oh my god, I _promise_ it’ll be fine,” Tim reassured him. “Just go over there and talk to him!! What’s the worst thing that can happen?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, I could-- I could say something stupid, or make a complete fool of myself or something, I wouldn’t put it past me to somehow find a way to do _that,”_ Martin mumbled, and Tim thwacked him lightly on the shoulder. 

“Martin! That’s quitter talk!” Tim admonished, “and more importantly that’s negative self-talk and you shouldn’t say things like that about yourself.” 

“Tim…,” Martin sighed pleadingly, rapidly running out of convenient deflections. This was ridiculous. Jon was hardly some distant, unattainable crush to be admired from a distance-- he was his best friend, for god’s sake. 

“I’m right and you know it,” Tim insisted stubbornly, and unfortunately, Martin did. “Come on, just go over there, it’ll be fine!” 

“Well,” Martin fidgeted, “I mean, maybe, uh,” he started, trying to psyche himself up. 

Unfortunately for Martin, he did not quite have the opportunity to do so. 

Indeed, it was true that Jon’s friends were not far. Tim and Martin were not the _only_ friends who were not far from Jon, however, and in the time it took Tim to convince Martin, someone beat him to the punch. 

For Jon, this entire exchange felt mostly like he had been standing at Sasha’s side one moment and then found himself lost in the next, and then in the time it took him to make a cursory look around and a token grumble of complaint, he felt a tap at his shoulder. 

“Archivist,” a voice said, “may I have this dance?” 

He was wearing a pale lavender button-down shirt and pinstriped black slacks that only emphasized how tall he already was, and his curly blonde hair framed a passive, unreadable face. 

“M- Michael?” said Jon, startled. 

He opened his mouth with a question half-formed on his tongue, but Michael just wordlessly held out his hand, and tentatively, almost disdainfully, Jon accepted it. “I suppose,” Jon answered reluctantly. 

When Jon had _first_ had second thoughts about agreeing to attend the winter formal, one of his key complaints was that he did not really know how to dance in the first place. Tim and Sasha had firmly reassured him that it mattered far less than one might think, and that most of the “dancing” that took place was just sort of vague movements and swaying, which they had stressed repeatedly until Jon was placated. 

Apparently, Michael had not gotten the memo. 

Apparently, _Michael was much better at dancing than Jon was._

Jon liked to consider himself a person who was good at learning by observation, but that did not always seem to apply when under pressure. Unfortunately, in this moment there was absolutely nothing in the universe more pressuring than suddenly finding himself far out of his depth and trying not to make a fool of himself. Michael, for his part, led Jon this way and that way with enviable ease-- Jon might have even been embarrassed if he had space in his mind to devote to anything except scrambling to pick up on how in the world he was meant to move and frantically trying not to step on Michael’s feet or trip and fall spectacularly. 

Jon tried to speak up in protest of the situation he’d suddenly found himself in, but it just came out as a vaguely anxious hum, at which he heard his dance partner stifle a small laugh. For most of this time his eyes were fixed to the floor, where he was intensely watching and mimicking in reverse the pattern of Michael’s steps. When at last managed to feel like he wasn’t desperately fighting against his own clumsiness and gained some degree of confidence, he risked a glance up at Michael. 

He was looking at Jon with a peculiar expression-- his eyes were nearly unreadable, but there was amusement in the faint quirk of his smile. Needless to say, Jon immediately looked away. He did not have time to process whatever _that_ was about. 

“Can we--” Jon panted eventually, “can we, maybe, _slow down??”_

Michael did not respond for a moment, but just then the song changed to one with much less energy and much less suited to the dance they were doing. “If we must,” Michael relented, except then Jon slowed to a clumsy halt too quickly and he felt the room spin. He just breathed, too bewildered for a moment to care that Michael was the one supporting most of his weight. 

Wordlessly, Michael took Jon by the hand and carefully led him away from the more crowded areas, and Jon exhaled a quiet breath of relief as the onslaught of sound and motion began to recede somewhat. 

Polite of him, Jon supposed, finding somewhere less busy for him to regain his composure. He squeezed Michael’s hand once in silent appreciation before abruptly becoming self-conscious and drawing away with a frown. Not that he had any good _reason_ to be-- there were not many people to see them, and far less that would care-- and yet some part of him remained on edge. 

“That… was far too dramatic for my taste,” Jon half-wheezed. 

“You expected anything less of me?” Michael said in reply. Which, Jon supposed, was fair. 

“I was _not_ anticipating you being as competent of a dancer as you are,” Jon huffed, and not even he was sure if he meant it as a complaint or a compliment. 

“If it’s of any consolation,” Michael said, “neither did I, until precisely that moment.” 

“What??” Jon said. 

“Since it is impossible that I’ve ever learned how, after all,” Michael added simply. 

“What do you _mean,_ you’ve never--” Jon started, confusion quickly morphing into frustration. “Michael, we need to talk,” he declared, exasperated, “what on _earth_ has been going on with you?? You-- you realize we’ve all been worried sick about you, right?” 

“Worried? What for?” Michael echoed, like it was the strangest thing he’d ever heard. 

“What _for?”_ Jon repeated, his voice a vehement half-whisper. “One day you’re-- pulling worms out of my best friend’s arm with a _pocket knife,_ we’re spilling our guts to you about all these terrible things we know and you’re more-or-less completely unphased, and then-- nothing! You’ve been nothing but _cryptic and evasive_ ever since Helen turned up, but clearly _something_ is going on with you-- hell, you even called me up out of nowhere in a panic, wanting to know where your own house was!” 

“I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you--” Michael started, wide-eyed. 

“Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it, because I’m certainly worried now,” Jon retorted, but then he stopped, forcing himself to take a deep breath and resume in a more even tone. “You realize... that this is, essentially, the first real interaction you and I have had in nearly two weeks, right?” 

“Is it?” Michael said faintly, stunned, and then he paused to consider. 

Two weeks? Had it already been two weeks? He may not have been outright avoiding them on _purpose,_ but… maybe it was true that he’d been more distant than he’d realized. He let Jon’s words sink in for a moment, taking in the expression of restrained, nervous frustration on Jon’s face, a furious sort of concern that felt almost entirely alien to Michael. Almost. 

He had been so wrapped up in his own little crisis that he hadn’t even accounted for the idea that other people would notice, or care. 

“I… apologize,” Michael said sincerely, shoulders slumping. “I hadn’t realized. I don’t _mean_ to be distant, but…” he sighed. “I really did intend to talk to you sooner rather than later, but I suppose you could say I’ve just been… busy.” 

“And what exactly have you been doing so much of lately that’s got you _so_ busy?” Jon prompted with a frown. 

Michael actually laughed at that, something nervous and dark. “Sorting truth from lies, or trying to,” he said, halfway to himself. At Jon’s look of irritated confusion, he continued, “Listen. There is something… _not right_ with me, but you already know that, don’t you?” 

There was something piercing about his gaze that made Jon uneasy. “What ever makes you say that?” Jon deflected. A nonanswer to the question Michael posed, perhaps, but… 

Well, Jon _did_ already know that, is the thing. He had since the very moment they met. He just wasn’t so sure he wanted to admit to it. 

Michael just sighed and said, “I’ve been-- _trying to_ sift through everything in my head and untangle it all, but the more I do, the worse it gets. It’s like-- I’ve been-- hm.” He paused, trying to choose his words carefully. “My… room, or rather, the room that ostensibly belongs to me, and allegedly has for years now. _Nothing_ inside of it is mine. I recognized everything, until suddenly, I didn’t. Do you understand?” 

“I… can’t… say that I do,” Jon said carefully, frowning. He also couldn’t say that he saw yet how that was connected. 

“Neither do I,” Michael said. “I am a stranger to my own life, my own memories, it’s-- it’s _maddening,”_ he lowered his voice to a furious whisper, “trying to reconcile reality from mismatching pieces like this. If none of these recollections are true-- then where did they come from? How does a life _fabricate_ itself??”

“Michael, what are you--” Jon started, uneasy. 

“Just-- look,” Michael said desperately, a small, hysterical laugh threatening to escape him, “I know how to knit, okay? But I know this only because amongst the dozens of other unrecognizable objects with no past I seemingly possess, there is a set of needles and a half-finished project-- I think it is a shawl, and judging by the color scheme it was intended as a gift for Agnes. I know that it must be mine only in that my hands remember how to go through the motions, by virtue of muscle memory alone.” He was watching Jon’s expression with an alarming intensity, like he was looking for a sign of _something_ that Jon didn’t know how to give. 

“M- My grandmother used to knit,” Jon ventured timidly, if only for want of any way to respond to such a thing at all. “I, er, I could never quite get the hang of it, though…” 

“I’d offer to show you,” Michael said, “but I don’t know how I learned, because I never did. It is _impossible_ that I ever did.” 

“That-- doesn’t make any sense,” Jon protested tentatively. 

“No, it doesn’t,” Michael agreed forcefully. “Both of those things cannot be true, I-- I haven’t _been_ here, there’s no way I could have ever learned. If I never learned, then I shouldn’t know how, so _why?_ Why do I know how to knit? Why do I know how to dance? Why do I have pictures I’ve never taken on my phone, why do I have keepsakes from memories I don’t have, why does my reality turn without me inside of it? Whose life is this?? Who am I if not Michael Shelley? What is a person if not the sum of their lived experiences, how can I _be_ Michael if I don’t own my own experiences? I- I’ve been absent for nearly half of my own life!” 

“Wait,” Jon stopped him. “Absent _how?_ Michael-- when you say you haven’t _been_ here… what do you mean by that?” 

“Ahh,” Michael said slowly, folding his hands together, _“now_ you are beginning to see it. Now, at least, we are beginning to misunderstand in the same direction. Tell me something, Jon: you don’t recognize me, do you?” 

“Wh- What do you mean, that doesn’t--” 

“You don’t need to lie to me anymore,” Michael insisted. “You don’t know who I am. In the middle of October, I showed up to class for the first time about ten seconds shy of being late, and in that moment you looked at me like I did not belong there. You don’t recognize me. You were never fooled, even when everyone else was, even when _I_ was none the wiser--” he broke off, laughing, and said, “you have always seen through me, haven’t you, Archivist?” 

_“Archivist,”_ Jon repeated. 

Something in him caught on the word, the weight of it finally beginning to sink in for the first time. It felt… heavy. 

“Three times now, you’ve called me Archivist,” Jon said. _Four_ times now he had been named as such, Jon didn’t say; once, only once, by the thing that wasn’t Jane anymore, hissed through clenched teeth and a worm-rotten tongue, at once a greeting and a curse. 

All of a sudden, Michael became very, very still. 

“Have I?” Michael nearly whispered, knowing he had made a mistake. 

“Tell me what that means,” Jon said, his voice becoming urgent in spite of himself. “Tell me what you mean by calling me that.” 

He-- he hadn’t realized there was anything to count until now, hadn’t yet realized there was anything deeper to acknowledge, but now, he was beginning to realize. 

“I… don’t know,” Michael said numbly. 

“Yes, you do,” Jon insisted, a wicked, almost gleeful edge creeping into the accusation. Four times. Three times by Michael alone-- but whatever this was, it was bigger than just Michael and his own little eccentricities, no. Jon was counting now. He saw it.

“I don’t,” Michael half-hissed. “I don’t know _anything._ I barely even know who I am, you think I know what you are? I don’t _know,”_ he said, and it was the truth, or as true as he could muster. 

And yet, somehow, it wasn’t enough. _I don’t know_ wasn’t good enough. 

_“Tell me,”_ Jon all but demanded, reaching out to grab his arm, and Michael stiffened. “I don’t understand,” he said, and he was so, so tired of not understanding, he would do _anything_ to make it _stop,_ “tell me what that _means,_ tell me what _any_ of this means, what do you mean by giving me that name, what do you _mean_ when you say you haven’t been here? Where have you been? Who are you, that you would speak of reality as if it twists in your hands and slips through your fingers as you try to grasp it? What happened to you? What are you not telling me? _What are you?”_

Michael shuddered, and for the first time Jon distantly registered the nervous tension in his frame, the rising panic in the cadence of his breathing. He was afraid, Jon realized. He could tell-- no, he could _feel_ it, pulsing underneath his own skin, throbbing in the space behind his eyes-- he could almost taste it. He _wanted_ to taste it. 

“Are you asking for my Statement?” Michael said, and Jon did not understand, he did not yet comprehend the importance of that phrasing, but some deep, instinctual part of him latched onto it with a many-toothed hunger, and his breath caught in his throat. 

_Important,_ the soft, overwhelming static filling his ears seemed to whisper. He did not understand, and yet it called to him so strongly he _ached_ with it. 

“Yes,” Jon breathed, not truly knowing what he was agreeing to, not knowing how to resist. 

“Then because I’ve already promised you an explanation, I will give it to you,” said Michael, trembling like a leaf, his blank eyes wide and unknowable as ever, “but first: I am not your enemy, understand?” 

That… had to mean something, Jon knew without understanding. He blinked in hesitant, muddled confusion. “You’re… my friend,” Jon murmured uncomprehendingly. Wasn’t he? 

“Yes,” Michael said immediately, an intensity in his tone that Jon did not quite recognize, “indeed, I am. I am your ally, I am here now, speaking with you, because I _trust_ you and not because I must, alright? I have never worked against you and yours in the past, and I vow that I never will, you have my word,” he said gravely. 

“And… how do I know you’re not lying?” Jon half-whispered, wary in a way that was unplaceable to him. _Why are you telling me this?_ He wanted to ask, desperately, but his mouth would not form the words. 

“I have _never_ lied to you, Archivist, I wouldn’t _dare,”_ Michael hissed. 

Jon wavered, distantly becoming afraid that he was getting in over his head, getting in far too deep to ever return from. 

Underneath the siren song of static rising in his mind there were alarm bells ringing uncontrollably, some part of him balking at the unknown enormity of what was happening, telling him he wasn’t ready for the question he was asking. But he was not more afraid of that than he was desperate to understand-- anything, _any_ of it, and so with a shaky voice he said, “okay.” 

At his acceptance of the terms Michael seemed satisfied, a tiny flash of uneasy relief passing over his features. “Okay,” he echoed, a weak self-reassurance, and with that he began to tell his tale. 

He spoke of a place where reality died, where it twisted in an endless, mind-rending mockery of itself, he spoke of a door that did not belong in the home of Helen Richardson, spilling everything out in unstoppable, uncontrollable detail. Jon closed his eyes, and the Archivist drank in every word, every last drop, until there was nothing left to tell. 

(He wouldn’t know until far, far later, but he was not quite alone as he did this, and the weight this act would not go unwitnessed.) 

* * *

“--Which was, sort of like, a parallel to the _beginning_ of the series, like thematically,” Sasha was saying. 

“Oh yeah,” Tim agreed, only half knowing what he was agreeing to. 

He wracked his brain momentarily. “I remember, you were saying earlier, right? About how the girl’s brother lost a friend in that place?” 

“Yeah!” Sasha agreed, her face lighting up at his recollection. All Tim could do was nod along fondly while she launched into a dissection of the themes of bonds and forgiveness or what have you in the latest book series she’d become absorbed in and consequently inhaled at a frightening speed. Hadn’t she only started reading these yesterday? Tim couldn’t remember. 

“--But anyway, like I was saying, she was all like, ‘no, I’m not leaving you behind in the ghost realm! Never again! We’re either getting out of here together or not at all!’” Sasha continued, gesturing emphatically. “So yeah, all in all it was a really satisfying ending, especially after everything they’d been through together, it was nice to see them okay in the end. They really deserved it,” she said. 

Then she glanced over at Tim again, and that giddy smile slipped from her face, just a little. “What’s the matter, Stoker? You’re giving me a look.” 

“Am I?” Tim said faintly. 

“I’m not boring you to death, am I?” Sasha said jokingly. Or rather, she _tried_ to say it jokingly, but Tim knew her well enough by now to know that underneath it she was always, always nervous about getting carried away, being _too much._

“Never!” Tim said, mock-offended. He pushed her shoulder lightly. “Face it, Sash, if you haven’t talked my ear off by this point, you never will,” he said teasingly. “Guess you’re just stuck with me forever.” 

Sasha laughed a little, looking away. “Don’t say that, I might hold you to it,” she said softly. 

“You’d better,” Tim laughed, “I’m not going anywhere. But no, really. I just like hearing what you have to say, that’s all. Promise you’re not boring me.” 

That earned a smile from her. “Well, since you promise,” she said lightly, and Tim beamed. 

They chatted a little more about this and that, unhurried, enjoying each other’s company, until finally Sasha stood up. “Well…” she said, stretching, “I think I’d best go and find out where Jon went off to. You said you saw him with Michael last, right?” 

“That was a while ago, now, but yeah,” Tim confirmed. 

“Right,” Sasha said, “well, I’ll track him down and drag him back, you can count on me. Be right back,” she said, and as she took her first step she stumbled just a little, cursing her shitty shoes under her breath as she half-limped off to go find their friend. Tim smiled after her for a long moment, amused, before he decided he’d probably better go and see what Martin was up to. 

They were currently sitting in the school library, having gotten tired of standing and wanting a break. The library was generally open during dances, and at most of the tables around them, groups of friends were talking and playing board games and the like. The librarian, Ms. Robinson, was not a fan of this in the slightest… though in that moment she was, oddly, nowhere to be seen. Which was no concern of Tim’s right now, and so he spared it no further though as he searched for his friend. 

He was not far-- he rarely was-- but when Tim found him, he was by himself in an isolated corner with a little composition notebook in hand, scribbling away intently with a somewhat dejected look on his face. 

Tim, of course, never one to miss an opportunity, quietly crept up behind him, peered over his shoulder and ominously whispered, “whatcha writing?” 

Matin yelped, nearly dropping his notebook. _“Nothing,”_ he declared immediately, snapping it shut, which of course meant that it was absolutely definitely something. 

“Oh, yeah? Nothing?” Tim raised an eyebrow at him, “sure it’s not, I dunno, another secret admirer poem for your prince charming or something? Hm?” 

“No,” Martin lied. 

“Well, I believe you,” Tim also lied. 

They stared at each other for a moment, until finally, Martin blushed, and Tim grinned in victory. 

“Not _everything_ I write is for him,” Martin whined in complaint, and Tim tried very hard to stifle a laugh. Martin just rolled his eyes and said, “look, there’s actually something I wanted to mention.” 

“Oh?” Tim said, immediately becoming interested. “What’s up? Are you gonna ask Jon out already?” 

“No, I-- Tim, listen, I’m being serious. You have a crush on Sasha,” Martin asserted, completely deadpan. 

Tim just stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded. “Whoa, whoa, now… Th- That’s a pretty bold claim to make out of the blue like that, I don’t know about--” he started. 

Martin sighed and said, “Tim, I’m a _poet,_ and I’m not _blind._ I _see_ you sitting there listening to her excitedly go on a tangent about the history of the written word or the invention of the polaroid camera or whatever--” 

“Martin, come on, that’s not--” 

“--looking at her with this starry-eyed look like--” 

“It’s hardly _starry-eyed,_ a- and besides-- okay, so what, she’s like my best friend, I don’t--” 

“--you’re sitting there, thinking to yourself, ‘don’t ever stop talking, I don’t ever want to stop listening,’” Martin insisted. “You’re sitting there and committing that _look_ on her face to memory, because she’s _excited,_ and when she’s happy, you’re happy,” Martin finished, and Tim just stared at him, jaw agape, completely and utterly bewildered. 

“Huh,” Tim said, processing. “What the hell.” He couldn’t even think of anything else to say.

After a moment, Martin smiled. _“Honestly,_ Tim. I feel a bit like I’m intruding sometimes.” 

“Ah, sorry,” Tim mumbled blankly, the gears in his mind still whirring wildly. Then he shook his head a little, pieces clicking belatedly into places, and said, “oh my god. _Fuck.”_

Tim didn’t have long to have an internal crisis about the sudden revelation Martin had just handed him, because there was Sasha, returning with Jon in tow. “Hey, guys!” She called over with a cheerful look on her face, her hand in Jon’s, and suddenly Tim felt like the biggest idiot, ever, in the whole entire world. 

“You’re welcome,” Martin concluded smugly. 

* * *

Jon had been quiet the whole time they talked. 

In fact, for the duration, he had stood at Sasha’s side with a distant look on his face, only just respondent enough with nods and vague replies to avoid being pegged as undeniably _off._ If Tim and Sasha noticed something was the matter with him, they didn’t show it-- after all, being _quiet_ was hardly out of the ordinary for Jon in and of itself-- but Martin noticed it, and once he did, he could not quite manage to banish that little flicker of concern that rose up inside of him.

Martin was hesitant to make a big show of it in front of the group, though, fearing it would make Jon uncomfortable, so he held his tongue until a suitable opportunity arose. And it did-- right as Tim and Sasha led the group back to the auditorium, a song came on that, apparently, they recognized, being that they both lit up at exactly the same time. 

“Oh hell yes, it’s our _jam,”_ Sasha declared, and off they went. Tim shot a glance back at Martin and Jon over his shoulder that quickly turned into a wink and a thumbs up in Martin’s direction, as if he was saying, _you got this!_ Which… would probably have been embarrassing if Jon were paying any attention, but his enthusiasm was appreciated all the same. 

Carefully, Martin laid a hand on Jon’s arm, and he flinched. 

“What’s the matter?” Martin said gently, quietly, and Jon blinked, as if in a daze. 

“What…?” Jon said faintly. He felt… spacey, like he couldn’t quite think right. 

“You’ve been quiet,” Martin pointed out, “and you’ve kinda got this look on this face like-- like you’re not all here, or something.” 

“I’m not,” Jon confirmed distantly, barely registering the words leaving his mouth. 

His head was still swimming with nebulous imagery of a hallway that never ended, sharp angles and abstract, twisting neons filling his head and pushing everything else from his mind. He felt dizzy, untethered, his thoughts a messy haze. 

“...Jon?” Martin prompted him from somewhere worlds away. Had he been speaking? Jon couldn’t be sure. 

“I… I think I have a headache,” Jon said tentatively, trying to focus his eyes on Martin and looking at him as if seeking reassurance. He couldn’t quite manage it, and the effect was that he seemed to look right through him, off into a space where Martin’s gaze couldn’t follow. 

“You _think_ you have a headache?” Martin repeated, his brow furrowing in concern. 

“I don’t know, I- I don’t… feel like myself,” Jon mumbled, which did not make Martin any less concerned. 

He gave Jon a strange look for a long moment, scrutinizing his face, and Jon felt an involuntary shiver run down his spine. “You know, your pupils are really dilated…” Martin murmured, “did you hit your head or something? Are you-- I don’t know, dehydrated? You should probably drink more water.” 

“N- No, no, I didn’t-- I’m not--” Jon fumbled, his muddled thoughts tripping him up. He took a deep breath to focus himself. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to-- I’m… not hurt, and I’m not in any pain, it’s, I- I don’t know, it’s just…” he started, trying to reassure him. 

It was… rather the opposite, in fact. He was exhausted, so much so that he could hardly bear to stand anymore, yes, and he could hardly think straight, unable to get Michael’s words out of his head. And yet, there was some strange part of him that felt… satisfied, a sick, alien sense of contentment resting heavily within his body, which suddenly felt different and wrong in a way he had trouble putting his finger on. It felt like he was too big for himself, or maybe that his form felt too small to possibly contain all of him, and that static pressure filling the inside of his head just wouldn’t go _away,_ and it was-- it was so overwhelming, it was so, so much. 

He wasn’t in pain, not with the cloying taste of fear and satisfaction filling him, but it was all so frightening, and he was uselessly, pitifully unequipped to handle it. This feeling-- he didn’t know what to _do_ with it. He didn’t like it. He wanted it to _stop,_ and he was powerless to stop it. 

“Oh, Jon, hey…” Martin breathed in sympathy, “don’t cry, i- it’s gonna be okay, alright? I’m sorry, I should have said something sooner…” 

(Was he crying? When had he started crying?) 

Martin wrapped an arm around him protectively and said, “listen, I think you’re probably having some sort of anxiety attack, I’m-- god, this is why you didn’t want to come in the first place, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, I- I’m gonna take you outside now, okay? It’ll be quieter out there, less overwhelming,” Martin said, gently ushering him forward. 

All Jon could do was nod numbly and follow his lead with the lost, drifting steps of a ghost, Martin’s arm around him the only thing anchoring him to the world. 

The next thing Jon knew, he was sitting on the curb. Distancing from the onslaught of overwhelming, unwanted sensory input inside… it didn’t make the feeling go _away,_ but it helped. It gave him the space to breathe, at the very least, and that was as good a start as any. 

Unfortunately, it was also December. Outside, the sky was dark and clear, and his breath came in puffs of crystallized fog even as at last he began to steady his breathing. Even then, Jon only truly registered the cold in so far as his body began to shiver involuntarily, a distant sensation. 

It didn’t really sink in until Martin was draping his jacket over Jon’s shoulders and moving closer so they could share it, and there, leaning into Martin’s side, shivering and curling into the familiar warmth of him, something funny happened to Jon. 

How many times had Martin done this for him before, that he knew so readily the signs of when Jon had reached his limit? How many times did Jon curl in on himself in fear and snap at him, first, how many times did Martin have to recoil from him and yet consciously choose to stay, to try again and again and again, before Jon began to understand that he was safe? How many times had they gravitated towards each other unthinkingly, silently seeking out that sense of safety they found in each other? 

“Better?” Martin asked in that gentle, sympathetic voice of his, and something soft and fragile began to unfurl in Jon’s chest. He didn’t know what to do with it. Everything was so, so much-- he hadn’t thought he had room inside him for anything else, but somehow he managed to hold it without breaking it, and this, at least, didn’t hurt. 

It was all he could do to nod, not trusting himself with words for fear that it would spill out of him the moment he opened his mouth. But it earned a tiny little smile from Martin in return, and so it must have been enough. 

Eventually, Martin spoke up again. “I think it’s probably best if you head home early, get some rest,” he suggested. 

“Oh,” Jon breathed. “I… I don’t want to _leave_ you all, though, I- I know Tim and Sasha were so excited…” 

“I know,” Martin said, “but there’s no sense in pushing yourself to the point of getting hurt. You know they don’t want that.” 

“I know, but…” Jon murmured, “I don’t want to ruin it for them. It just seems like they’re having so much fun, I don’t… I just…” he trailed off. “I promised them I’d at least _try,”_ he protested. 

“Well, you did try,” Martin said. 

“Hardly,” Jon countered, feeling pathetic. 

“You know, If I were the one saying that, you would tell me, ‘Martin, don’t be ridiculous.’” 

“I would _not,”_ Jon said, half-indignant. 

“Yeah, you would,” Martin said with a small laugh. “Either that, or you’d go, ‘Martin, be reasonable,’” he said in what Jon had to assume was an imitation of his own voice. 

Jon sighed reluctantly. “Yeah, okay, maybe I would,” he admitted. 

“Then I guess you’ll just have to forgive me for saying this, but you’re being ridiculous,” Martin informed him. 

“Alright, I get it,” Jon conceded. “I’ll… I’ll call Elias and ask him to come get me. I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Martin chided him gently. 

“Martin--” Jon started, before he could think better of himself, “I just… I wanted to thank you. For looking out for me, in there, I… I appreciate it.” 

“Always,” Martin said easily, like that didn’t mean the world to Jon. “I mean, you’d do the same for me,” he said, and Jon’s stupid, predictable little heart melted all over again. 

Another couple of minutes passed once Jon had gotten off the phone with his guardian, and in that time, it seemed that the others had gotten worried about them, because they came looking. 

“Hey, guys!” called Tim with a wave, the first to spot them. Sasha, once she saw them too, took off in their direction at what probably would have been a sprint if her footwear allowed it. Martin gave Jon an amused smile as he hauled himself to his feet, and extended a hand down to help Jon up. 

“There you are! We didn’t see you leave, we’ve been looking all over for you!” Sasha said, wide-eyed. 

“Yeah, um…” Martin glanced briefly at Jon, who gave a small nod. “Jon got a little overwhelmed, so I took him out here to get some air. He’s, uh… actually about to head home, now.” 

“Aw,” said Tim as he caught up to them. “Sorry to hear that-- you just not feeling up to it, then?” 

“Yeah, I- I’m sorry,” Jon said, not looking at either of them. “I just… I can’t. I’m sorry for dipping out on you like this, e- especially given how hard you both worked to _get_ me here in the first place…” 

“Oh, Jon,” Sasha said sympathetically, a look of concern and guilt on her face, “don’t be-- _I’m_ sorry for dragging you here in the first place, it’s my fault,” she murmured. “I didn’t realize… I should have been paying closer attention…” 

“No, no,” Jon said quickly, “I’m fine, I promise, I didn’t want to bother either of you--” 

“Hey, no, you’re never bothering us!” Tim reassured him. “Stuff happens, it’s not like it’s your fault, alright?” 

“Agreed,” Sasha said sincerely. She pulled him in for a hug, and Jon, still feeling soft from the warmth of Martin’s coat and his arm around him, went unresistingly. 

Of course, at the sight of Jon willingly doing so, Tim immediately perked up and said, “oh? Hell yeah, group hug? I want in,” and then promptly threw his arms around both Jon and Sasha. “Hey, get over here, Martin!” 

“Stooooopppp,” Jon whined petulantly, not meaning it even a little bit, and they both just laughed. Martin shook his head at them fondly, but still he came, wrapping one arm around them with a grin. Jon put up a token resistance, and then slumped bonelessly against them, exhausted beyond measure and weak with relief that despite everything, his friends were there to catch him. 

(It was fine, Jon reassured himself, despite his earlier fears-- he had people looking out for him, he would be able to handle it. He would be alright.) 

* * *

He would not be alright. 

The moment they let go of him, the moment he became separate from them as he parted ways, the dizziness came back, worse than before, the wrongness coiled and twisted pleasantly within him and viciously chased away the traces of their comfort. He felt sick. He wasn’t fine. _None_ of this was fine. 

* * *

“I’m fine,” Jon snapped evasively for the fourth time, clearly anything but. 

“If you’re sure…,” said Elias, not believing him, and not knowing what to do about it. 

He glanced at Jon again in the rear-view mirror, the red hue of a stoplight casting his face in an unreadable, intentional stillness. There was a certain vigilance about him, readily clear in the way he was trying to conceal that something was incredibly, terribly wrong. His gaze was fixed firmly somewhere far, far away, as if that would hide the emptiness of it, absent and unseeing, so wrapped up in whatever was going on in that guarded mind of his. 

The fear was almost tangible, coming off of him in waves. Nothing about that seemed _fine_ to him-- _something_ had clearly happened to Jon, and Elias didn’t know what. 

He hated that, the not knowing. It was maddening, but if Jon was so dead-set on keeping it to himself, well-- that was as far as he was willing to push. But he didn’t have to like it, and so they both sat silently in the car, spiralling in different directions, until the deafening silence became so smothering that Elias could hardly stand it anymore. 

It made him think, rather unwillingly, of a moment that was not so long ago and not so different from this one, the day he’d foolishly let Jon out of his sight and he had come home battered and frightened and irrevocably marked by the Flesh. The silence in the car was eerily the same. 

The very thought was daunting, and he clenched his hands, resisting the urge to press him again. There was just nothing to be done, or so it seemed, and the uncertainty was suffocating. 

That day, the Knowing had slid into his mind like a knife-- the cold, awful knowledge that Jon was about to be in unspeakable danger, and too far from him to do anything but Watch, not fast enough to be there in time for anything but the aftermath, when it was already too late. 

On _this_ day, it was different. 

This time, the Knowing was little more than a faint prickle building somewhere in the back of his mind, a vague sense of presence that lingered for a moment before it resolved itself into something solid. 

_He is doing well,_ something in him whispered, and Elias became still, taken aback. 

So that was the answer. The directness of it surprised him. 

Somehow, that answer did nothing to reassure him at all. 

“Elias,” Jon said suddenly, startling him out of his thoughts. 

“Hm?” 

“Thank you,” Jon said quietly, “for coming to get me. I know you weren’t expecting me just yet, I… I really just… I need to get some rest. I’ll be fine in the morning, I promise.” 

“Alright,” his guardian said, forcing himself to believe him, “if you’re sure.” 

* * *

Jon had a nightmare that night. 

In the dark of an unfamiliar house, he was lying bound on the floor, choked by a cold, cutting black ribbon of something metallic that wound tightly around his body, around his throat. He could taste it, he realized with a shudder of revulsion, and that was when he realized where it was coming from, that it was spilling out of his own mouth, that it was sitting heavy in his own stomach, a broken mechanical whir spilling weakly out of his throat. 

The only thing he could see from this vantage, ever so slightly ajar, was a door-- or perhaps it was that he could not bear to tear his eyes away from it, from the enthralling, sickening light it cast from somewhere beyond its sinister maw. It made his head spin and spin and spin until he was sure that he was coming unravelled from the inside out, abstract neons burning deep into the backs of his eyes. 

Something completely alien brushed against his consciousness, and faintly he felt the touch of its pride, the ghost of its satisfaction. _You have done so well,_ it seemed to whisper, and he shivered with it. 

Above all, he got the distant, unshakeable impression that he was _waiting_ for someone. But that someone never came, and so he lay motionless and powerless before the door that wasn’t a door that wasn’t part of reality, until Jon finally shuddered awake in the dark of his bedroom, alone, with nothing but the faint taste of dread to console him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …Don’t do statements at school dances, kids! It’ll, uh, fill you with cosmic dread and attract the attention of something unfathomable and evil. Though the Ceaseless Watcher is certainly proud of its, er, “special little boy” in this one… 
> 
> Truth be told I have NEVER felt as bad for my characters as I have in this chapter. Apparently I feel comparatively little remorse about like, making Michael cry, or stealing Jon’s bones, but inflicting Archivist Horror on Jon in this chapter… oof. I’ve never been so sorry. 
> 
> Speaking of being sorry, apologies for being a week late on the chapter. I’ve been really looking forward to this one, and I wanted to take some extra time on it. That being said-- **we have now reached the end of Arc 1 Interlude!** Thank you so much for sticking around this far, this story has been such a blast and a major learning experience, and I can’t wait to start on the next arc!!!! (…Also, I promised myself that once I finished this I could make a new document for the next arc, since my computer screams in agony every single time I try to open this fic.) 
> 
> However, as with this chapter, I am going to take a little extra time and care as I start on Arc 2, so I will be taking another hiatus from posting for now. **I’m hoping to begin Arc 2 and have chapter 28 posted sometime in late December.** Though in the meantime… If you wanna come bully me for my many writing crimes, I (Cosmic_Retribution) am on tumblr as [ @autisticflowey](https://autisticflowey.tumblr.com/), and my beta and partner in crime is [ @librius](https://librius.tumblr.com/). (I will probably post some minor updates and thoughts regarding eotb on there as well, if that’s of any interest.) 
> 
> Finally: special thanks to my cat, who helped me edit this chapter, and by “helped” and “edit” I mean she jumped on my damn keyboard 😔 . see you all with the next chapter in December, when we start arc 2 out of 3, and thank you again for reading! :)


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